


A Sanders Carol

by IronWoman359



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Crying, Deception, Gen, Ghosts, Hospitals, Illnesses, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Inspired by A Christmas Carol, also, by inspired by i mean it is, death mention, so have fun with that, this is straight up a christmas carol with Logan as Scrooge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 12:16:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15557523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IronWoman359/pseuds/IronWoman359
Summary: Dr. Logan Sanders is perfectly satisfied with his life, thank you very much. He has his work, he has his position. His bills are paid, and his lifestyle is primed for optimum health. And he is far too busy maintaining his perfectly balanced lifestyle to worry about things like Christmas, much to the dismay of his few remaining friends. Hardened by years of working to get ahead in his field, nothing is capable of swaying his cold heart, not even the dire straits of his graduate assistant or the pleas of his closest friends.He also does not believe in ghosts.So when he suddenly finds the ghost of his old mentor in his apartment warning him of three more spirits to come, what will he choose to believe? Will Logan take the spirits’ words to heart in time to change his ways, or will the fate of his future be sealed forever?





	1. Illogical

Dr. Jacob D. Marley was dead, to begin with. There was no doubt whatsoever about that.

Logan especially was absolutely certain that the old chemistry department head had died, being the one to discover him slumped over at his desk in his office last December. Even as he had dialed 911, he’d known it was no use. The wrist that he picked up to feel for a pulse was cold, and the palm had developed a bluish hue. No, old Marley was dead as a doornail.  

Not that anybody was particularly bothered by that. Outwardly, the students on campus were solemn and respectful. However, it was clear through internet message boards, group chats, and not-so-quiet conversations at the coffee house that the most generous of students who had his classes were indifferent about his passing, and the least generous of students were secretly pleased that he’d no longer be a presence on campus.

Known for his extremely difficult coursework (that he called “rigorous” but that most called “unfair”), the unpopular professor had even earned the nickname “Dr. Deceit” among students who particularly disliked him, referencing not only his middle initial that was always included on his official documents, but his tendency to give confusing exams that seemed to be designed to trick the taker rather than test them.

Logan himself wasn’t especially saddened by Marley’s passing either, but he felt he at least owed it to Marley for the years of mentoring that he had provided to show up at the funeral. After all, he wouldn’t be this far along in his academic career were it not for the professor’s coaching. He was one of the only faculty members to actually attend the memorial, as Marley had been almost as unpopular with the staff as he was with the students. Logan had never been able to see why. Dr. Marley was highly intelligent; his rise to the head of the chemistry department at a relatively early age was evidence of that, wasn’t it?

“Jealousy,” was all his mentor had said when Logan hesitantly broached the subject once. “Lesser people dislike what they don’t understand, and they covet what they cannot have. Which is why you must never let such people get in your way, Sanders. Do you understand?”

Logan had nodded, filing away the advice in his mind next to so many other similar tidbits that Marley had bestowed over their years of working together. It did make sense. Plenty of other professors wanted the prestige that came with being department head; the distasteful glances Logan sometimes caught the others sending Marley’s way at staff meetings certainly could be chalked up to jealousy.

And now, a year later, surely that was the same reason for Logan’s own unpopularity as the new department head. He reminded himself of that every time he heard students murmuring in the halls of the science building or caught the glances of other professors in the break room. They were all jealous: jealous that he had been Marley’s favorite, jealous that he now held the position that held so much power, and jealous that he was smarter than all of them.

Logan did not have time for their jealousy.

Nor did he have time for these unnecessary introspections, he reminded himself as he shook his head, bringing his attention back to the pile of papers in front of him. It was the week before Christmas break, which meant that the massive pile of final essays had to be finished as quickly as possible so that final grades for the semester could be entered — a fact that didn’t seem to be bothering his grad assistant as much as it should have.

Logan frowned at the thought, glancing at his watch. Soon enough, the slightly breathless form of Joan Stokes hurried into Logan’s office, doing their best to take their seat without making eye contact with Logan.

“Mx. Stokes, how kind of you to _finally_ arrive,” Logan said, irritation evident in the edge of his voice.

Joan winced at Logan’s tone. They were barely ten minutes late, but with Dr. Sanders as their supervisor, it may as well have been thirty.  

“I’m sorry Dr. Sanders—” they began, but Logan cut them off.

“Are you aware of how many times you have come in late this past month?”

Joan grimaced, but nodded their head.

“Yes, sir.”

“No less than  _four_  times this month alone!” Logan continued, as though they had not answered.

“Sir, I—”

“We are a part of a prestigious academic organization, and therefore must run at the highest level of efficiency. This requires, among _numerous_  things, punctuality from all members of the staff.” Logan peered at Joan from over the rims of his glasses, his gaze making the grad assistant squirm. “Need I remind you that you are a member of this staff, Mx. Stokes?”

“No, Dr. Sanders.”

“Then why have you elected not to act with professionalism regarding your attendance?”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Sanders,” Joan said desperately. “I had a series of medical emergencies and—”

“Your health has been impeccable from what I have been able to tell,” Logan interrupted, and Joan inhaled sharply through their nose before continuing.

“It…wasn’t  _my_  health…it was Talyn’s.”

“A relative?”

“My datemate. They had to be admitted to the hospital at the start of this month, and have had complications…I try to be there every free moment that I have and still make it back for classes and work, but the traffic downtown is so bad, and—”

“Spare me the irrelevant details,” Logan cut in, “and don’t let it happen again. Unless you want to lose your position, that is.”

Joan swallowed and nodded, staring down at their feet.

“Yes, Dr. Sanders.”

“Now,” Logan said briskly, shoving a huge stack of papers in Joan’s direction. “These need grading, and if at  _all_  possible, must be completed before the weekend so that the students will have all of their grades before exams next week.” He folded his arms, and regarded his assistant with a cold look. “Do you think you can manage that?”

“Yes, Dr. Sanders,” Joan said again, taking the papers without meeting Logan’s eyes.

“Good. Let’s get to work.”

With that, the two of them began grading in silence, the only sound in the room being the scratch of pen against paper and the rustle of pages turning. Joan’s face was slightly red, and if Logan had been paying more attention, he might have seen them trying to hold back tears as they scanned the essays. However, Logan had more important things to worry about than whatever nonsense his TA had going on.

* * *

The two of them had been grading for what felt like ages—though it was really only just over an hour—when a knock at the door sounded through the office.

Logan looked up, a slight frown flitting across his face at the noise. His office hours were technically open, but most of his students were familiar with his distaste for being interrupted. Still, it was final exam season, so it stood to reason that a few students would be more worried about their grade than worried about bothering their irritable professor. Classes were also over for the day, so it could be a fellow professor dropping by with something Logan needed to sign off on or read through.

All these possibilities ran through Logan’s mind as he called out “Come in!” but a possibility that he had  _not_  considered was what actually came to pass.

The door swung open and Logan found himself face to face with a young man who was a few years older than Logan himself. He was dressed in what Logan thought to be a particularly gaudy hand-knitted Christmas sweater, with a lumpy gift-wrapped package under his arm and a bright smile on his face.

“Merry Christmas, Logan!” the man exclaimed, his smile growing—if possible—even wider.

“Thomas,” Logan replied tersely, “Christmas is still over two weeks away, it is hardly logical to wish me a Merry Christmas  _now_.”

“How is my favorite cousin doing on this fine winter’s day?” the man continued, as if he hadn’t heard him.

“Thomas,” Logan said again, rolling his eyes, “I am your only cousin. I am, therefore by necessity, your favorite one as well.”

Thomas’s smile was unapologetic, but there was a touch of sadness behind his eyes that Logan might have noticed had he been more in tune with emotional cues…or just paying more attention.

“How is the life of a big shot academic treating you these days?” Thomas asked, sitting down in an empty chair across from Logan’s desk. Logan raised an eyebrow at the uninvited move, but did not comment on it, instead opting to place his grading pen down with just a little more force than was necessary, the  _*click!*_  of metal on wood audible in the quiet office.

“It is treating me adequately. Though I wish I could say the same for the students themselves.” He glanced briefly at Joan, who quickly went back to grading upon noticing Logan’s eyes on them. “This time of year, they seem especially uncooperative. I swear, university students get denser every semester…”   

Thomas frowned briefly, but he then shook his head, letting his smile slide back onto his face.

“Well, it  _is_  the holidays, Logan. Everyone is thinking about their plans, their families, not to mention final projects and exams are tough. You of all people should know how hard it is. You can hardly expect all of them to be at the top of their game right now.”

Logan sighed.

“ _Tough_  it may be, but I was quite capable of managing all of my responsibilities during this time of year, if you remember.”

Thomas’s smile went sad again, and he shrugged.

“Well, you were always smarter than average, Lo.”

“I know,” Logan said simply. “Did you come into my office just to point out obvious facts to me, or did you have some reason for dropping by?”

Thomas shifted his weight in his chair and put on an expression that was probably meant to look innocent, but only served to confirm Logan’s suspicion that his older cousin wanted something from him.

“So now I need an excuse to check up on my cousin and ask how he’s doing?” Thomas asked.

“Not technically, but you probably have one anyway.”

Thomas held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

“All right, all right.” He paused and bit his lip, and Logan tapped his fingers on his desk impatiently. “It’s…it’s about Patton’s Christmas party,” Thomas finally admitted.

Logan sighed, and picked up his pen again, turning his attention back to his papers.

“No.”

“Logan. Please, just listen—”

“ _No_ , Thomas,  _you_  listen,” Logan said sharply, putting his pen down again and fixing his cousin with a glare. “As I have said to you all  _numerous_ times before, I do not have the time right now to waste on frivolous holiday displays or get togethers. I have far too much work to do.”

“Logan, Patton’s parties are a tradition!” Thomas insisted. “And you haven’t been to one in years! We miss you there.  _Patton_  misses you there.”

“Patton knows full well how busy my schedule is, Thomas, and he knows full well what my answer to his invitation will be.” Logan raised an eyebrow. “Is that why you’re here now? Patton knew that I would say no if he asked me, and thought that as family you might have better luck at convincing me?”

Thomas didn’t reply, but his silence was all the answer that Logan needed.

“Not a bad plan, but I’m afraid the answer is still no.” Logan looked down at his papers again, indicating as clearly as he could that he was done talking about the notion. “Tell Patton that his idea didn’t work,” he added without looking up again.  

“For what it’s worth, it wasn’t Patton’s idea,” Thomas said as he stood up from his chair. “It was Virgil’s. Here,” he continued, tossing the lumpy package onto Logan’s desk. Logan raised an eyebrow quizzically.

“What is this?”

“Your sweater.”

“My swea—” Logan groaned and ran a hand over his face. “No, Thomas, I don’t want this.”

“He made it for you, Logan. I’m not keeping it.” Thomas stared at his cousin hopefully for a moment, but sighed when Logan pointedly ignored him. “Have a Merry Christmas.”

“I told you that’s illogical to say, Thomas.”

“And a Happy New Year.” Thomas turned, and left the office after nodding and smiling to Joan.

Logan watched him go, then shook his head and shoved the package off his desk and resumed grading.

Patton’s insistence at making him a sweater every year, despite the two of them having outgrown such childish displays long ago, was puzzling to Logan. Of all the things Patton could be spending his time on, he was meticulously knitting all his friends unique holiday outfits?

Logan shook his head. There was a reason that despite the fact that they were the same age, Patton still only taught english classes to high schoolers, while Logan had ascended to the head of a university department. Dr. Marley had been right; drive was the only way to get ahead in life, and those who didn’t have it would be left behind with nothing but table scraps.

The rest of the evening’s grading passed without incident and soon enough, Logan and Joan were packing their things up and wrapping coats and scarves around their necks, preparing to face the evening’s chill. Logan had just about made it out of the office when Joan’s voice stopped him in his tracks.

“Dr. Sanders, don’t forget your package.”

Logan turned to see Joan pointing to the gift from Patton, still discarded on the floor. Logan grumbled, but scooped it up nonetheless, shoving it unceremoniously into his bag, not caring if the wrapping tore. He nodded curtly, and locked the office door behind him.

“Remember, I expect you to be perfectly on time for the remainder of the semester,” was all he said to Joan before turning and briskly walking down the hall and out of the building.

That night, Logan ate dinner alone, then settled into his worn out armchair with a cup of tea and his laptop open before him. He had emails to send and reply to, grades to post, he had to make sure all of the lessons he was responsible for tomorrow were ready to go and in line with the curriculum, not to mention he had his own research to pursue for the article he was working on…there never seemed to be enough time to do everything that needed to be done.

Logan caught a glimpse of the package from Thomas sticking out of his bag and rolled his eyes. As if he had time for  _Christmas_  of all things right now.

* * *

He wasn’t sure how late he stayed up working; all he knew was that suddenly, his morning alarm was going off on his phone and that his neck was very  _very_  stiff. He yawned, stretched, and pulled himself up. So, he spent another night in the armchair. What did that matter? Somewhere in the back of his head, an inner voice that sounded suspiciously like Patton told him that it wasn’t healthy and that in order to get his best sleep he needed to be in bed, but Logan ignored it as he brewed his morning coffee, grabbed a granola bar, and headed out the door.

The day passed by without incident. Logan robotically moved from classes to staff meetings to labs, going through the motions of a busy December day at the university. Lunchtime came soon enough, and Logan thought of going to his favorite cafe,  _The Gallery,_  for a sandwich, but then he imagined Virgil staring at him disapprovingly from behind the counter, having no doubt been informed by Thomas that his plan hadn’t worked.

Logan decided to just grab a protein bar from the vending machine and continued working.

That evening’s grading session was blissfully uninterrupted, except for when a group of Christmas carolers who looked suspiciously like some of the kids from Roman’s theatre group showed up outside his door. Logan made a big show of slamming the door shut in the choir’s faces, the sound causing Joan to jump slightly beside him. Logan simply sat back at his desk without so much as an apology, and continued to go over the essay he was working on.

That night passed the same as the night before, with Logan in his chair with only his laptop and a cold cup of tea for company, and he once again found himself dozing off and spending the night in the living room.

* * *

The week continued in comfortable routine and before Logan knew it, he was closing up his final lecture on Friday afternoon, calling out reminders to the students as they left that if they were more than ten minutes late to the final exam next week, they’d receive a zero.

He was packing up his things from his teaching station when he got the feeling that he was being watched.

He looked up, his eyes scanning the lecture hall, but all the students had gone. He turned and, to his embarrassment, actually jumped a little at the sight of Patton in the doorway. The man tried to stifle a giggle at the sight of Logan so flustered, but he failed spectacularly and Logan felt his cheeks redden with heat.

“I did not expect to see you here,” he admitted once he regained his composure.

Patton’s smile froze for a moment, before he forced it to stay on his face.

“Well, Virgil says you’ve been ignoring his texts, so I thought I’d come find you in person. And you’re not exactly a hard person to find, Lo.”

“Well, you’ve always known where to look for me, haven’t you?” Logan pointed out, and for a moment Patton smiled a smile so bright it could’ve lit an entire building.

“Classes keeping you busy?” he asked casually as he watched Logan stack up the few hastily handed in (overdue) essays and unplug his laptop from the teaching station.

“You know they always do,” he said, only half paying attention to Patton as he focused on his task.

Patton’s voice was so quiet Logan almost didn’t hear it.

“Too busy for your best friend?”

Logan glanced up. The smile was gone, and Patton was staring into his eyes with a look that was almost pleading.

Logan sighed.

“Patton, I am… _sorry_  that I am not able to attend your party tomorrow,” he began, trying to make his tone sincere. “But my schedule simply does not allow it. I have far too much to do.”

“It’s not just the party, Lo,” Patton said, his voice still low. “We’ve hardly seen you in months. You don’t…come around anymore. We rarely talk or text…we don’t hang out after work or school…Virgil even said you’re not coming into the cafe as much as you used to.”

“Yes, well…I’ve been working through my lunch breaks.”

“Even during the holidays?” Patton pouted. “Come on Lo, where’s your Christmas spirit? Roman said you slammed the door on his carolers on Tuesday.”

Logan looked up again.

“How does he know that? Did they report back to him or something? Did he send them just to spy on me?”  Logan wouldn’t put a stunt like that past the theater owner/director; Roman was certainly dramatic enough for it.

“He was  _with_  them, Logan.” Patton’s voice was suddenly sharp. “He was just around the corner; he was going to come out and do a big solo number for you, but you shut them out before they even finished the intro.”

Logan groaned and rubbed his temples with his thumb and forefinger.

“I had a suspicion that Roman was the one responsible for interrupting me,” he grumbled.

“He was trying to get you to live in the moment!” Patton insisted, his voice rising in pitch and volume.

“He was disrupting my work!”

“Okay, but you didn’t have to be so—” Patton stopped, and took a deep, shaky breath. He reached up under his glasses to rub his eyes, then looked back up at Logan, some of the growing fire gone from his expression.  

“So what?” Logan pushed, and Patton sighed.

“…disrespectful,” he finished lamely. Logan had a feeling that that wasn’t the word Patton had stopped himself from saying, but he didn’t care.

“Look, Logan…ever since that… _business_  with Dr. Marley a few years back—”

Logan frowned and looked up. Patton’s face was as hesitant as his tone, and the look Logan shot him only served to further his discomfort, but Patton pressed forward.

“—you’ve been…look, you’ve just been different, and it’s hurt us to see.”

“Patton,” Logan growled, “I thought we agreed not to talk about that anymore.”

“But he’s gone now, and I was hoping that we could try to—”

“Try to what, Patton? What did you think, that he was controlling me or something? That because he’s gone now I’ll suddenly change the way I act?” Logan threw his bag down on the podium and folded his arms. “Well, that’s not going to happen. I’m the same person I’ve always been, Patton, and if you don’t like it, that’s not my problem.”

Patton looked taken aback by Logan’s outburst, but he didn’t say anything, opting instead to stare down at his fingers as he picked at his nails.

“If there was nothing else?” Logan said as he shouldered his bag. When Patton said nothing, Logan started walking towards the door, not looking at his friend as he passed next to him.

“I came to ask that if you won’t come tomorrow, if you’d at least come over for drinks with us tonight,” Patton said, his voice softer and uncharacteristically deadpan. “Roman’s hosting.”

Logan looked behind him. Patton was staring into the now completely empty lecture hall, a far-off look on his lightly freckled face.

“Patton,” Logan said, fighting to keep his voice even. “I’m sorry, I’m just t—”

“Just too busy, I know.” Patton turned and offered up a half-smile. “Sorry to bother you.”

Logan paused for a moment, something buried deep in his chest urging him to say something. Before he could work out the words though, the urge was gone, and with a curt nod in Patton’s direction, he turned to leave.

“Merry Christmas, Logan,” Patton called as he left, and Logan sighed.  

“Illogical,” he muttered to himself as he headed to his office for the night. The image of Patton staring into the empty lecture hall with tired blue eyes pushed its way to the front of his mind, but he pushed it away again, shaking his head as though the movement would dislodge the unwanted thoughts from his brain like brushing away cobwebs.  “Illogical.”


	2. Seeing is Believing

By the time Logan finished his work and was on his way home, it was dark outside, the cold winter air only amplified by the loss of any warmth from the sun. Logan usually did not mind the cold much, but this winter was proving to be especially bitter, and he found himself wrapping his scarf tighter around his neck as he hurried from his car to the front door of his apartment complex.

Now, Logan was not a superstitious man. He was a scientist, and as such viewed the world through the lens of the scientific method. While he couldn’t deny the possibility of there being more to the world than had yet been observed, he was content to not firmly stake belief in the existence of anything that had not yet been proven.

So needless to say, he was rather understandably shocked when he went to press his floor on the elevator and found Dr. Marley’s face, plain as day, staring up at him from the control panel. Logan blinked, hard, and then rubbed his eyes. But the image did not fade, move, or change. It simply stared up at him, an intense expression fixed on its face.

The elevator sat motionless, waiting for a command, but Logan found himself fixed in place, unable to make himself reach out and press the button. It was a standoff — a standoff between Logan’s mind telling him that what he saw before him couldn’t possibly be real and Logan’s eyes that were very insistent that  _no_ , something was definitely there…

The standoff abruptly ended when Logan’s phone dinged loudly in his pocket, pulling his attention away from the phenomenon before him. He pulled it out of his pocket, and saw a message from Virgil glowing gently on the screen.

_patton told me what happened today_

He sighed, and slipped the phone back into its place. He was not in the mood for a scolding right now; no doubt Virgil would take offence to what Logan had said to Patton earlier.

Logan looked back to the control panel, but the face had vanished as if it was never even there, and he shook his head to clear it.

“Illogical,” he murmured to himself as he pushed the button for his floor. How could he have actually thought something was there? Perhaps the nights of sleeping in his armchair were getting to him after all.

Logan’s phone dinged again as the elevator doors slid open at his stop, and out of habit he glanced at the screen. Virgil again.

_c’mon man, I just wanna talk to you_

Logan slipped his key into the lock and entered his apartment, locking the door behind him with a soft  _*click!*_

_you can’t ignore me forever, logan_

Logan turned off his cell phone and deposited it in the bowl he kept by the door for his keys, and headed into the kitchen to reheat some leftovers.

The incident in the elevator hovered in the back of Logan’s mind as he ate his dinner, and try as he might, he couldn’t seem to shake the image of Marley’s face staring up at him out of his mind. There had been something about his eyes…something deep and accusing in them that chilled him to the bone and left him unsettled, even after he’d been trying to work on his laptop for several hours.

Logan was just about to give up on work for the night and head into his bedroom when he realized that the room was suddenly colder than it had been moments before. Had the heater shut off? No, that didn’t make sense; it would have been getting gradually cooler if that were the case. This was a more sudden chill, as if someone had opened the window to allow the icy wind from outside to blow through the apartment.

Logan was about to get up to check the thermostat when he heard it. A slow, soft clinking sound, followed by a loud thump that repeated over and over. It was as if someone was dragging something very large and heavy up the stairs by a metal chain, and it was coming from the hallway outside.

Logan searched his mind, trying to come up with a logical explanation for the sound, but each possibility was more ludicrous than the last. It grew louder; it was coming closer now, coming  _towards him_. Logan tried to move, tried to speak, tried to do  _anything_ , but his body stayed stubbornly rooted to the spot, unwilling to move.

The thumping stopped after a few goes, and was replaced with a low pitched  ** _scraaaaape;_**  whatever was being pulled up the stairs was now dragging along the ground as the source of the noise grew closer and closer.

Logan’s heart hammered against his chest. The room was so cold now that his breath fogged up in front of him, and the hairs on his neck and arms stood on end, though he couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or from fear. The part of him that was still trying to think logically suggested to him that it was probably both, but Logan was having a bit of trouble paying attention to that part of his mind.

Then the ghost came through the door, and all logic ceased in Logan’s brain.

Despite the fact that Logan didn’t believe in spirits, there was no denying that the figure in front of him fit all conventional descriptions of a ghost. It was transparent, a shimmering pale blue, and it hovered a few inches above the ground. Wrapped all around its body were thick, iron chains that glowed with a sickly yellow light. At the end of the chains were heavy stacks of books—textbooks from what Logan could tell—and academic journals, all dragging along on the ground behind the figure.

Most unsettling to Logan though, were the eyes.

They stared directly at him, wide and unblinking, glowing with the same light as the chains. Behind their eerie gaze swam an unreadable mix of emotions, making it difficult to gauge exactly what the apparition was thinking. But, besides their otherworldliness, what might have been most unsettling was the fact that it was a gaze Logan recognized all too well.

He recognized the whole being, in fact, for it was none other than Dr. Marley himself. He fixed his stare at Logan with a look that wouldn’t have been out of place on the professor’s face if Logan had simply not performed a task adequately. The all too familiar expression was disconcerting even when Marley had been alive, and now that he was  _dead_  it was downright terrifying.

“W-what, I-I mean, w-who, h-how…” Logan’s mouth moved up and down and his tongue struggled to form words, but nothing was coming out clearly. A large part of him still didn’t even believe that what he was seeing was real. “W-who are y-you?”

The ghost raised an eyebrow.

“Ask me who I  _was_.” The voice, though it was tinged with an unearthly reverb, was stark in its familiarity, and even as he asked, Logan knew the answer.

“Who were you then?”

“In life, I was your superior, Dr. Marley,” the ghost said, peering down at Logan, who said nothing. An unpleasant half smile curved its way up his lip, and he folded his arms, the chains clinking as he did so. “You don’t believe in me.”

“I…I don’t,” Logan admitted, though the fact that he was having an apparently intelligent conversation with something he did not believe in was more than a little world-shattering.

The ghost regarded him for a moment, then chuckled.

“In the past, I might have said the same. We are men of science, are we not? What use would we have for all of  _this?”_  He gestured at himself, and shook at his chains. They clattered around his feet, and he frowned down at them before shaking his head slightly and looking back towards Logan.

“And yet,” he continued, “as a man of science, you ought to trust in the observable. Conclusions based on pure conjecture—”

“Are conclusions made by lesser men,” Logan finished, and Marley raised an eyebrow.

“You remember that one?” he asked.

Logan nodded.

“I remember all of them,” he said. “Everything you taught me, I still use it to this day.”

“Hm.” Marley fixed Logan with a strange look. “It might have been better for you if you didn’t.”

“What?”

Marley sighed and folded his arms.

“Look at me, Sanders. Use your senses, make an observation. What conclusions can you draw from the evidence of your own eyes?”

Logan eyed the spectre up and down, taking in the disheveled funeral clothes he wore, the glowing chains, and the weight they pressed down on his shoulders.

“If…if I pretend for a moment that the evidence of my senses can actually be believed…I’d say that your afterlife was not a particularly, ah, pleasant one,” he guessed.

“Your powers of deduction are astounding, Sanders,” Marley said dryly. “Whatever could have given it away?”

Logan squirmed under his old mentor’s gaze. In the year that Marley had been dead, Logan had almost forgotten how uncomfortable the professor was capable of making him feel.

“At any rate, you are right,” Marley sighed, kicking at one of the stacks of books he was chained to.

“If…if I may ask,” Logan said hesitantly, “why are you…” He gestured to the chains that wrapped around Marley’s body, unable to say it out loud.

“These are the chains I forged in life,” Marley explained. “Chains of greed and power, forged over years of hungrily seeking positions that would give me control over people, destroying others in the process.” The ghost stared at Logan with eyes that seemed to bore deep into his very soul. “And that is why I’m here now,” he added.

“W-what? What do you mean?” Logan asked, swallowing.

“I’m being punished,” Marley said simply. “Punished for the way I lived my life, but not just with the chains and weights. I must…right my wrongs.” He gestured towards Logan. “Which includes you.”

“I…I’m sorry what? You…you never  _wronged_  me, Dr. Marley. You…you  _helped_  me! I’m department head now because of you!”

Marley rolled his eyes.

“If it were not for me, you probably would have become the head years ago. And the fact that you cannot see how I wronged you only proves what a good job I did convincing you that what I told you was true.”

“Okay, this proves it,” Logan said, standing up and folding his arms. “There’s no way this is really happening. The real Dr. Marley would never—”

“Never admit I was wrong? You’re right. I never would. But the ones who’ve sent me have forced me to tell you the whole truth. I’m sure some souls are just jumping at the chance to right their past mistakes, but honestly I don’t enjoy this one bit.”

Logan blinked. Okay, that sounded more like Dr. Marley now. Then he frowned as a question came to mind.

“The ones who sent you?”

Marley nodded and drew himself up to his full height, floating a few inches higher than he had been before for good measure.

“I have been sent ahead to warn you,” Marley said darkly. “If you continue on the current path you walk, your fate will be just as horrifying as my own. Three spirits will come upon you tonight. Heed their words, and you might yet be spared.”

As he ended his speech, he slouched back down again, folding his arms with an irritated expression. Logan swallowed and shifted his weight from foot to foot.

“I…three more spirits?” he asked, trying to make his voice steady but not quite succeeding.

Marley nodded.

“Expect the first before the chime of midnight. The second, on the last chime of midnight. The third, on the first chime of the devil’s hour.”

“Is all this really necessary? Maybe they could all just come at once?” Logan suggested hopefully, but the look Marley shot him shut him up quickly.

“Between now and when they come, it might do you well to start believing in spirits,” the ghost said. “You are being offered a chance…for once in your life, accept that you might be wrong. If you don’t…” He began floated backwards, back towards the door where he had floated in. “You’ll regret it for as long as you live…and as long as you don’t.”

With that, he floated through the door and disappeared.

Logan stood frozen for only a moment before he tore across the room after Marley, throwing the door open as soon as he reached it. But all he saw was the dreary, empty hallway of his building. Marley had vanished—gone back to where he’d come from. Or, had he never been there at all?

Logan shook his head, already trying to put the event out of his mind. There was no way…no way it could be real…

_“For once in your life, accept that you might be wrong.”_

The last words the ghost had uttered danced around in Logan’s mind. If the whole experience  _had_  been real and Marley’s words were all true, then he had more company to expect. When was the first coming again?

“Before the chime of midnight…” Logan murmured, then glanced at the clock. It was barely past eight pm.

“Couldn’t have been a bit more specific there Marley?” he grumbled. By that logic, the first spirit could arrive at any moment; how was he supposed to prepare?

Logan sighed and rubbed his eyes. Why was he thinking as though this was actually going to happen? He really must be tired.

He glanced over at his armchair, then shook his head. Overworking himself very well may be the cause for this bizarre hallucination. Perhaps he should just go to bed early for once.

The moment the thought of sleeping in his actual bed entered his mind, it became very difficult to ignore, and in less than an hour Logan found himself in pajamas, lying in bed with a cup of tea on his nightstand. His laptop lay open beside him; as it turned out he hadn’t been  _completely_  capable of putting his work aside for the night.

He scrolled through the article he had pulled up for his personal research project, scanning paragraphs for useful information. Before too long though, his eyelids grew heavy, and his head began to droop as the world grew hazy around him, the thought of ghosts almost gone from his mind. 


	3. The Ghost of Christmas Past-ton

It was the light that woke him, shining against the back of his eyelids and warming his face. He thought at first that it must be the sun, and that his alarm had failed to wake him at the proper time.

Then, Logan opened his eyes.

It was still nighttime, and the source of the brilliant white light was certainly not the sun.

An indistinguishable figure stood at the foot of his bed, bathed in a glow that could only be described as heavenly. Logan lifted a hand to shield his eyes, blinking heavily.

“Wha—?” he gasped, trying to process what he was seeing.

“Logan Sanders?” a voice that was oddly familiar called to him, and Logan found himself nodding as he squinted against the light.

“S-sorry, could you…could you put that light out?” he mumbled, still trying to adjust to his newfound awakened state.

The voice laughed, and  _God_  it sounded so familiar…

“My light cannot be put out, Logan Sanders, though many throughout time have tried to darken its glow. All without success.”

“I…I don’t mean to offend.” Logan felt compelled to apologize for even suggesting the notion, but he still could barely see in his now overly lit bedroom. “It’s just…my eyes…”

The voice laughed again, a light airy sound that illogically filled Logan’s heart with…something, he wasn’t sure what. Something warm and pure and good, something that made him feel safe.

As the laugh faded, so did the light, dimming so that it was less like looking at the brilliance of the sun and more like looking at a particularly bright lamp. The figure now merely glowed pleasantly, with the bulk of the light that still shone out centered around their head.

When Logan’s eyes found the figure’s face, he gasped aloud.

“ _Patton?_ ”

The figure at the foot of his bed was the spitting image of his friend, from his curly auburn hair, to the freckles that were splashed across his cheeks, to the glasses that were always sliding down his nose. It was dressed in a long, sleeveless white robe, and Logan honestly couldn’t tell if the robe was glowing or if it was reflecting light from Patton’s face. A strand of holly was wrapped around its shoulders, and a calm smile sat on its face as it regarded Logan.

“Patton, how—what—” Logan stammered. “I don’t understand…”

The figure’s smile widened as it spoke, and its voice—though identical to Patton’s in timbre—reverberated with an otherworldly air.

“No, not quite. I am not Patton Foster; I have simply chosen to present as a figure from your life in order to make you more comfortable. This form was chosen based on his connections to you, and on his similarities to me.”

As it made its declaration, Logan could see that it was right. While the figure was strikingly like Patton, there was something that was definitely  _off_  about it…something ethereal that Logan couldn’t explain.

“Who—who are you then?” Logan asked, unable to tear his eyes away from the figure’s serene face.

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Past,” not-Patton said. “Though, if it makes you more comfortable, I suppose you may call me Patton.”

“Christmas…Past?” Logan wondered aloud. “What does that mean? Long past?”

“No,” the ghost replied with a smile. “ _Your_ past. Are you ready?”

“Ready? Wait, ready for what?”

“Your journey,” the ghost said simply.

“Uh…” Logan looked out his window, where a few stars could be seen poking through the blackness of the world outside. “It’s the middle of the night.”

The ghost laughed again—Logan got the feeling that it laughed as easily as the real Patton did—and held out his hand to Logan, who was still in bed.

“Don’t worry,” he said, and surprisingly, Logan  _wasn’t_  worried. Confused, bewildered, still partly sure that this was all a dream…but not worried. This spirit was nothing like the unsettling form of Dr. Marley; it was warm and inviting, and Logan inexplicably felt safe in its presence.

“It’s not night where we’re going,” the ghost continued, and Logan frowned as he took its hand.

“Where are we gooOOAAGGH!!” Logan’s question faded away into a scream as he took the outstretched hand and he found himself floating up into the air. His heart jumped into his mouth and he clutched at the spirit’s arm in a panic. “A little warning would have been nice!” he muttered as he tried to adjust to the new sensation.

The Ghost of Christmas Past just smiled at him gleefully as they drifted towards Logan’s window. Logan began to panic again when he saw what the ghost was doing.

“Wait, don’t!” He cried, trying and failing to scramble backwards away from the window…and the three story drop that lay just outside of it.

“Don’t worry,” the ghost said again. “As long as you hold onto me, you will not fall.” He giggled as Logan clutched him tighter as they passed through the glass as if it wasn’t even there and floated out over the street.

Logan stared in wonder as the ghost continued to float upwards, pulling him along. A gentle, steady snow had begun to fall, and the light that shone outward from the ghost reflected off the flakes in a soft glow that made the very air around them seem to shimmer. Below them, traffic lights and street lamps cast the street into a hazy winter wonderland as the ground was slowly covered in a blanket of white.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Logan looked up to see the spirit smiling at him. He blushed, embarrassed to be caught staring, but nodded.

“I never get tired of the view from up here…” The ghost smiled wistfully for a moment, then squeezed Logan’s hand. “But it’s not what we’re here to see,” he added, and suddenly their ascent quickened.

Logan barely even had time to be embarrassed about the yelp of surprise that left his lips before the wind whipped it away as they climbed higher and higher into the sky. He clung desperately to the spirit’s robes as they soared into the clouds, then above the clouds, then Logan was squeezing his eyes shut, too afraid to keep them open any longer. He lost track of everything around him—there was only the whistling of air in his ears and the warm, reassuring realness of the ghost’s arm that he held on to for dear life.

Logan refused to open his eyes, even as he felt solid ground beneath his feet and warm sunlight on the back of his eyelids. Only when the Ghost Of Christmas Past gave soft chuckle and whispered “we’re here” did he release his vice-like grip on the spirit’s arm and take a look at their surroundings.

When he saw where they were, he gasped out loud.

“You know this place?” the ghost asked with a smile.

“Know it?” cried Logan. “Of course I know it! I was a boy here!”

The two stood on a snow covered lawn under the shade of a large oak tree. Beside them was a large brick building with the words  _Foley Public Elementary School_  printed in large letters on the side. The sun shone bright overhead, glinting off the snow with a blinding glare, but Logan barely noticed the discomfort.

He was too busy watching the spectacle in front of him.

Scores of children wrapped up in coats and scarves were scampering around them, shrieking and laughing with the elation that could only come at the end of the school day. Mittened hands scooped up snowballs and little boots stamped out tracks as they chased each other in circles around the lawn. Parents and teachers were calling names out, and every time a child left the crowd, a chorus of  _Merry Christmases_  and  _See you next years_  rang out as their friends waved goodbye to them.

Logan tried to dodge a flying snowball, but it sailed harmlessly through him, as though he wasn’t even there.

“We are merely visitors in this time,” the ghost explained, seeing the look of confusion on Logan’s face. “We may see and hear them, but they are not aware of us.”

“These were my classmates,” Logan said in wonder, staring at the bustling crowd of kids. “Look, there’s Taylor Shrum,” he said, pointing to a little boy in a red scarf. “And there’s Valerie Torres-Rosario,” he added as a pair of dark pigtails darted past. He named several more children as their parents came to collect them, shocked by how clearly he remembered them all.

“It’s the last day of school before Christmas,” the ghost said. “They’re all going home for the holidays.” He looked over at Logan, and raised an eyebrow. “The school should be empty.”

Logan looked down at his feet.

“Is it?” the ghost continued, and Logan shook his head, not trusting himself to speak.

“Come,” his guide said kindly. “Let us see what we may find inside.”

He took Logan’s hand again and led him forwards, walking straight through the walls and into the school hallway. Logan would have known the route to take even if the ghost was not guiding him along; he knew exactly where they were going.

Soon, they found themselves passing through the doors of the school library where a little boy with thick rimmed glasses and dark hair sat alone at a table in the corner, a book in his hands. A gleeful shout was heard through the window, and the boy lifted his head at the sound before giving a tiny frown and focused on his book again. He stared intently at the page, as though if he concentrated hard enough, it would drown out any distractions. A stray tear slipped out of the child’s eye and he sniffed, frowning even harder down at his lap.

“There are many reasons why a child might choose to be alone at Christmas,” the spirit commented, the usual smile on his face replaced with a look of pity. “None of them are particularly happy ones.”

“I wasn’t alone,” Logan whispered. “I had books, I had knowledge. Most of the other children were not engaging to me, and I did not care for playing outdoors.”

“But that’s not why you stayed indoors on this day.” The spirit’s tone did not leave any room for debate, and Logan could only shake his head.

“No,” he admitted, unable to tear his eyes away from the sight of his younger self huddled in the corner.

The ghost looked at him expectantly, but sighed when Logan said nothing more.

“Well, you were right about one thing,” he said, causing Logan to look up.

“Hm?”

“You were not alone.”

As if on cue, the doors to the library burst open, and both versions of Logan jumped in surprise at the sudden sound.

“Logan!” cried a curly haired little boy running into the room. His freckled cheeks were flushed pink from the cold, and there were bits of snow sticking to his matching gray cat paw gloves and cat ear hat; evidence of involvement in a snowball fight of no small scale.

“Patton,” breathed the adult Logan, just as his past self exclaimed, “Patton!”

“What are you doing here?” The past version of Logan continued, quickly wiping any stray tears from his cheeks.

“Looking for you, silly,” Patton answered. “My mommy’s here to pick me up, but I wanted to see you, and I couldn’t find you outside anywhere.”

“Well, that’s because I’m not outside,” little Logan said, which made Patton laugh.

“Well yeah, I see that now, Lo-Lo!” Patton grinned, then his grin turned into a look of concern. “Why are you back here all alone, anyway?”

“I…it’s cold outside and I forgot my hat today,” Logan mumbled, looking away from Patton. The lie was obvious to Logan as an adult, but Patton seemed to take his friend’s word at face value.

“Oh, why didn’t you say so!” The boy pulled his own hat off, his auburn curls sticking out in all directions with static. “Here, you can use mine!”

A shy smile graced Logan’s face, but he shook his head no.

“You need it Patton. And besides, aren’t you about to leave?”

“Well yeah, but since I’m going home I won’t need my hat, so you can use it instead!” Patton shoved the wool knit hat into Logan’s hands before he could protest. Logan took it carefully, fingering the cat ears knit on top of the head.

“I’ll give it back as soon as school starts again, I promise,” he said, meeting Patton’s eyes.

“Oh, you can keep it, silly!” Patton said cheerfully, but Logan shook his head.

“Patton, the cat ears are your favorite!” he insisted, trying to give it back, but Patton wasn’t hearing it.

“My mommy knits these for people all the time, so she can make me a new one.” He smiled and added, a little shyly, “Besides, I wanted to get you something for Christmas but wasn’t sure what…so this is perfect!”

Logan stared at him, trying to form words. Eventually, the child settled on, “But, I didn’t get  _you_  anything.”

Patton responded by surging forward.

“You’re my best friend, Lo-Lo,” Patton whispered as he engulfed Logan in a tight hug. “That’s all the present I need.”

Logan stiffened at first, but then he slowly reached up and hugged back, which made Patton only hug him tighter.

“Pat,” Logan choked out eventually, “air.”

“Oh, sorry!” Patton cried, releasing him. Logan sucked in a loud, deep breath, then met Patton’s eyes and the two of them burst out laughing.

“I’m…I’m sorry if I’m not a very good best friend,” Logan said once the last of the giggles had faded. “I’ve never had a best friend before, so—“

“It’s okay,” Patton interrupted, smiling. “I haven’t either, so as far as I’m concerned, you’re the best best friend ever!”

He snatched Logan’s hand and started pulling him towards the door.

“Come on, let’s go!” he said, but stopped when Logan pulled back, tilting his head in confusion. “What’s wrong? You have a hat now.”

“I…it’s not just the hat, Patton, I—”

Before the child could come up with the words to say, a new voice called into the library that caused both the children and Logan, along with the ghost, to turn towards the door.

“Logan? Are you in here buddy?”

“Thomas?” Logan asked in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“My dad and I came to pick you up,” the older boy explained, “but you weren’t outside. A Mrs. Foster said that her son went inside to find you?”

“That was my mom!” Patton said excitedly. “Are you Thomas, as in, Logan’s older cousin, Thomas? The one who’s in middle school?”

Thomas smiled fondly.

“Yeah, I am.”

“Wow, that’s so cool!” Patton said excitedly, but Logan cut in before Patton could barrage Thomas with questions.

“Why…why are you and Uncle Remy picking me up?” He asked.

“You’re staying with us for Christmas break.” Thomas frowned slightly. “Your dad and my dad had a fight about it, but my dad won it, and now you’re gonna stay with us!” He grinned at Logan. “I’d say you have a choice, but you know how my dad is when he sets his mind on something.”

“Yeah,” Logan said, and then gave a small smile. “And I would have said yes anyways.”

“Cool.” Thomas smiled back. “You ready to go?”

Logan grabbed his backpack from his chair and nodded.

“Alright then, come on fellas.”

Patton grabbed Logan’s hand and after a moment, Logan smiled and allowed himself to be pulled along.

When they reached the entrance to the school, most of the other children were gone, leaving one of the teachers, Patton’s mother, and Logan’s Uncle, Remy, alone by the doors.

“Patton! There you are,” his mother said, and the boy gleefully dove into her hug.

“You all set, Logan?” Remy asked, peering over the rim of his sunglasses with a grin.

Logan nodded, and cracked a small smile.

“Okay then, say bye to your friend and we’ll head out,” he said, patting Logan on the shoulder.

Logan barely had time to turn before Patton had enveloped him in another hug.

“Merry Christmas, Logan!” he squealed. “Oh!” Patton turned to his mother, excitement shining in his eyes. “Can Logan come over for a playdate during break?” he asked her eagerly.

“If that’s alright with Mr. Sanders here, then of course he may,” Mrs. Foster said.

Logan hung his head sadly, but then Remy spoke, and the child’s eyes snapped up in amazement.

“Something like that could be arranged, I’m sure.” Remy said, ruffling Logan’s hair.

“Yay!” Patton cheered while the adults exchanged phone numbers.

The soft chuckle of the Ghost of Christmas Past caught Logan’s attention, and he tore his eyes away from the scene playing out before him.

“What?” the ghost asked when he caught Logan’s eyes on him. “You two were cute.” He smiled fondly. “That playdate was your first Christmas party with Patton, wasn’t it?”

Logan narrowed his eyes, but nodded.

“And those parties became a yearly tradition for you and your other friends?”

“Look,” Logan said, folding his arms. “If this whole thing is just about my refusal to attend Patton’s party this year—”

“Or last year, or the year before, or—”

“ _THEN_  you showing me something I already know isn’t going to do much to sway me.” Logan raised an eyebrow at the ghost. “I haven’t somehow forgotten how long I’ve been friends with Patton.”

The spirit smiled at Logan, the way a parent might smile at a child who had insisted on carrying the heaviest grocery bags into the house all by themselves.

“Let’s see another Christmas,” was all he said, before taking Logan’s arm and waving his hand.


	4. Party Pooper

Logan gasped as the world dissolved around him in a blur of colors and faces. Once his mind adjusted to the barrage of information that his eyes were feeding him, he realized that the scenes flashing by were scenes from his life.

He saw Thomas helping him haul a suitcase containing all his belongings into an SUV, while Remy and his father shouted at each other in the background. He saw the opening night of the play Patton had worked tech crew in, and Patton pulling him aside after the show to introduce him to the lead. He saw Roman try to scoop him up in a spinning hug on their graduation day while Patton laughed so hard behind them that tears ran down his cheeks.

He saw the day he and Patton moved into their dorm together at the start of their freshman year, he saw the day he met Virgil for the first time to tutor him in chemistry, and he saw the day that the three of them met with Thomas at the theater to watch Roman in his first professional role.

Each scene flashed by in less than a second, replaced with another before most people could’ve even seen what was happening. But Logan recognized each one instantly.

He looked over at the ghost in amazement to see a look of intense concentration on his usually serene face. He was scanning the scenes, as if he was flipping through a book or magazine for something specific.

“Aha!” the ghost said cheerfully, snapping his fingers. As soon as he did, the flurry of images stopped, and Logan found himself staring at yet another familiar place.

The apartment that the two travelers now stood in was small, but what it lacked in size it made up for in spirit. As massive a tree as the space allowed took up one whole corner of the room, lit up in as many strands of lights as Patton could manage without it being a fire hazard. Christmas music floated through the air, along with the smell of peppermint and cinnamon wafting from the kitchen.

The atmosphere was warm and inviting…or at least it would have been if it weren’t for the  _people_  in the apartment.

Roman was balanced precariously on a stepladder, a strand of garland wrapped around his neck as he tried to lay it out against the wall. Virgil was below him, a box of tacks in hand and an anxious scowl on his face.

“Princey, you’re gonna fall and break your neck; do we  _need_  garland along the walls?” 

“It’s Patton’s first party in this apartment, Santa Cross, it has to be  _perfect._ ”

“I know red is a Christmasy color, but I don’t think that your blood is going to be a pleasant addition to the decorations.”

“Kiddos! Be nice!” Patton called from the kitchen. A fond grin was on his face, pairing perfectly with the flour smeared across his cheek as he put the finishing touches on a tray of Christmas cookies.

“Well, we wouldn’t even be in this mess if Logan would tear himself away from his laptop to help us,” Roman said with a pout.

“I told you Roman,” Logan said from an armchair in the corner, “it is of the utmost importance that I get this finished as soon as possible. Especially considering that our boss will be attending this evening.”

“Oh, come on Lo,” Patton said as he slid the tray of cookies in the oven. “It’s not like he’s going to be discussing work with us. This is a party. We’re all here to celebrate and have a good time. Let loose for one night.”

Logan rolled his eyes, but allowed Patton to pull him to his feet anyway. He dutifully held the ladder steady for Roman, then grabbed a box of ornaments and followed Virgil towards the tree.

The Ghost of Christmas Past nudged the other Logan with his elbow and raised an eyebrow at him.

“What?” Logan asked irritably, and sighed when he saw the ghost smirking at him.

“It seems that once upon a time, your friend was capable of swaying you to actually enjoy yourself from time to time.”

“Patton is quite…emotionally capable,” Logan admitted. “But he has never had a…sense of urgency about him,” he added as they watched the four friends finish decorating, good natured banter floating through the air. “He was always content with smaller things.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” the spirit said gently. “But look at him.” He nodded in Patton’s direction. “His grades were not as good as yours. He didn’t pursue grad school like you, and he didn’t work through every holiday he had. And yet, he’s happy.”

“I’m…happy,” Logan protested.

The spirit gave him a look, and Logan scowled back.

“I  _am_. I am aware that the life I lead may not be appealing to some, but it is perfectly adequate for me. Why can’t people see that?”

Before the spirit could answer, a knock sounded at the door, catching their attention.

“The guests are here!” Patton squealed in excitement before hurrying over to open up his home. Behind the door stood a large man and woman, arm in arm and wearing matching red Christmas sweaters.

“Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig! Come in!” Patton cried, stepping back and waving the couple inside. “This is Roman and Virgil,” he said, gesturing to the pair who had since stopped their bickering and were smiling good naturedly, “and you of course know Logan,” Patton finished.

Logan nodded as he shook hands with the couple.

“Mr. Fezziwig, Mrs. Fezziwig. Thank you for coming.”

Mr. Fezziwig laughed and clapped Logan on the shoulder.

“Please Logan, how many times? Just Larry is fine, especially here.”

“That goes for you too, Patton dear,” his wife added, nudging Patton with a smile. “This is a party, after all!”

“Whatever you say, Dot!” Patton said cheerfully. “Can I get you two something to drink? We’ve got some punch, eggnog. Or if you’re in the mood for caffeine, Virgil there can work magic with some hot chocolate and an espresso machine!”

“Ooh, really?” Dot asked, turning to Virgil, who blushed.

“Well, I’m alright,” he admitted. “I’ve had a lot of practice, being a barista and everything.”

“Don’t sell yourself short dear, I’m sure they’re just lovely,” Dot said, making Virgil’s blush deepen. The two of them made their way to the kitchen while the others sat down in the living room to socialize.

“Logan, you’re the only one not matching the festive mood!” Larry teased, gesturing to Logan’s polo shirt and tie. “Did you not have a sweater of your own?”

“Oh, he  _has_ one,” Roman cut in before Logan could answer. “Patton made these for all of us himself!” He gestured to his own red, white, and gold sweater. “But Logan says they’re  _not professional_.” Roman shot Logan a smirk, and the Ghost of Christmas Past chuckled, causing both iterations of Logan to scowl.

“Logan,” Larry said, some of the frivolity disappearing from his voice, “I’ve been a principal for a long time. My wife has been a teacher like you and Patton for even longer, so trust me when I say this: professionalism is an important part of our job, yes. But if you let it consume your life…if you let the work and the stress and the analytics take over the reason you started doing this in the first place? You’ll find yourself very unhappy indeed.”

“Sir?” Logan asked, cocking his head, and Larry laughed.

“I’m saying relax, Mr. Sanders. It’s Christmas. You’re surrounded by friends. Loosen the tie for once.” Larry winked, then stood and moved into the kitchen, where Dot was loudly praising Virgil’s homemade peppermint mocha.

Logan sat still on the couch for a moment, before Roman nudged him.

“C’mon, Specs. Live in the moment!” He smiled warmly, and after a moment, Logan smiled back.

“Excuse me for just one moment,” he said before rising and disappearing down the hall.

By the time he re-emerged, Thomas and some of the other guests had arrived, and Logan was dressed in the dark blue sweater with the holmium atomic symbol knit in three times to spell “Ho Ho Ho” that Patton had made for him.

“LOGAN!” Patton practically screeched when he saw him. “You’re wearing it!!”

“Yes,” Logan said with a smile. “I was…persuaded that my previous disposition towards the idea may have been incorrect.”

Patton looked over at Larry, who just winked at him, and then he laughed, throwing his arm around Logan’s shoulder.

“Well, I’m glad to see you wear it, Lo-Lo.”

“Patton!” Logan cried, ducking in embarrassment. “I draw the line at the childhood nicknames!”

The group laughed, and though Logan’s cheeks were tinged pink, he couldn’t help but join in.

As the party began getting into swing, Logan felt the Ghost of Christmas Past’s hand on his arm, and the scene before them began to dim, the voices fading away the edges growing fuzzy.

“You respected Larry Fezziwig, did you not?” the ghost asked, and Logan nodded.

“He was my first boss…he treated his staff and students well, was always professional but also always made sure we had everything we needed, even if it was just a kind word…and his wife was a fine teacher as well. Patton probably learned more about teaching english from her than he did in four years of college education.” He smiled fondly at the fading memory. “Patton invited Larry and Dot to every party he planned after that; he even started knitting sweaters for them too.”

“I wonder then, what could have changed your opinion of him?” the ghost asked, and Logan frowned.

“Changed? I…my opinion didn’t change, what do you mean?”

The ghost sighed.

“You heard his words, did you not? The advice he so freely offered you all those years ago? You even took it, and see how happy it made you?” The ghost pointed to the fuzzy scene, where Logan was laughing at something Roman had said, a cup of Virgil’s coffee in his hand.

“What are you getting at?” Logan asked suspiciously.

The ghost merely waved his hand in response, and the scene swirled away. When the world around them stilled, the glowing warmth of the holidays was gone, replaced with an empty hallway.

“Where are we?” Logan started to ask, but stopped when he saw two figures at the end of the hallway. He frowned, and turned towards the spirit. “Why are we here?” He demanded.

“Watch,” the ghost said, nodding towards the pair.

“I thought you were trying to show me the joys of Christmas or something?” Logan pressed, folding his arms.

The ghost looked at him with a sad smile, and shook his head.

“Why did you suddenly stop taking the advice of your passed mentor when he said things that you did not want to hear?”

“I—what?”

“ _For once in your life, accept that you might be wrong,”_  the ghost said with a raised eyebrow. “Now. Watch.”

Logan frowned, and looked towards the end of the hallway. This was, of course, a moment he remembered, but that didn’t meant he particularly liked thinking about it.

“Patton, please, you’re being ridiculous.” Logan was standing in a doorframe, rubbing his temples.

Patton, meanwhile, was standing outside and clearly trying not to cry.

“Logan,  _please_. I’m trying to help yo—“

“Trying to  _help_  me?” Logan interrupted. “Really? Because it seems to me that you’re against me moving forward in my career!”

“I—no, Logan, that’s not it at all, I…I  _want_  you to succeed, I—”

“So that’s why you’ve been trying to take my attention away from my work? Why you’ve consistently tried to distract me, or even worse, tried to ruin my chances of completing my doctorate?”

“Logan—”

“Those are pretty funny ways of showing me that you want me to succeed, Patton!”

“ _Logan!_ ” Patton pleaded, tears welling up in his eyes. “Please, Logan, listen to yourself! I don’t want to do  _any_  of those things, you…” He hiccuped, and reached under his glasses to wipe at his eyes. “You haven’t…been the same since you started working with Dr. Marley—NO, wait! I  _want_  you to get your doctorate Logan, which is why I think you need to  _stop working with him!_ ”

Logan rolled his eyes.

“He’s my dissertation supervisor, Patton, I can’t just stop working with him.” He raised an eyebrow. Especially not because  _you_  don’t care for his methods.”

Patton stared open mouthed at Logan, then frowned and shook his head.

“You’re right, I don’t care for his methods. I don’t like how he treats people, especially you, and I don’t agree with his views. I don’t like the person you’re turning into, working with him.” Patton clenched his fists, and his lip quivered as he spoke. “But I could forgive  _all_  of that, because I know how important this is to you. But this business with your paper…”

Logan groaned and folded his arms.

“Patton, I told you to let that go.”

“Logan, I’m an  _english teacher,_  how am I supposed to just let that go?”

“It’s really not that big a deal.”

“It’s plagiarism!” Patton raised his hand before Logan could speak again. “I don’t care what Dr. Marley calls it, and I don’t care what argument he made to justify it — it’s  _stealing_ , Logan. He’s stealing your work!”

Logan pinched the bridge of his nose and hissed out a breath of air before speaking.

“For the hundredth time, Patton, I  _let him_  use the article!”

“Without  _any_ credit, compensation, and without him even  _asking_ you! You didn’t even  _know_  about it until it was already published!”

“Well it least it  _got_  published!” Logan shouted, startling Patton into silence. “I don’t have a doctorate yet, and I’m still years away from completing my degree. This research is relevant  _now_ ; if Dr. Marley hadn’t published it under his name, the paper might never have gotten the attention it deserved!”

“Oh Lo…” Patton whispered, horrified. “Is that what he told you?”

“It’s not just what he told me; it’s the truth, Patton. Now, if you’re done wasting my time?” He jerked his head back through the door he was standing in to the open apartment behind him. “I have a lot of work to get back to.”

“Logan, wait—” Patton tried, but it was no use. Logan had shut the door, leaving Patton standing in the hallway with tears running down his cheeks.

The Ghost of Christmas Past turned to look at Logan, who by this point was deliberately avoiding looking at either the spirit or at Patton.

“We…we made up, later,” he mumbled when the silence became too awkward to bear. “I acknowledged that I had been unnecessarily rude, and apologized for it.”

“But?”

Logan raised an eyebrow at the ghost, who was eyeing him with that damn look on his face again. It was the same look that the real Patton gave when he thought Logan was being unreasonable, an expression that seemed to be a strange mix of tiredness, pity, and understanding, but on the ghost’s face it was almost inhuman, the vastness of emotions that danced behind his eyes. Whatever it was, Logan was sick of it.

“But what?” he snapped, folding his arms.

The ghost raised an eyebrow right back, and folded his own arms, all without breaking eye contact with Logan.

“But things never felt quite the same after that.”  

It wasn’t a question, and Logan hated that. He hated how  _certain_  the spirit was that he knew what was happening. He hated that the ghost felt it had the right to come and turn his life upside down and make claims when he didn’t even  _know_  Logan — how  _sure_  he was of the statements he made about Logan’s life.

He hated that he was right.

“What do you want?” he asked, refusing to acknowledge what the ghost said outright.

“What do you think I want?” the spirit asked in its ridiculously calm voice.

“I don’t know!” Logan cried, throwing his hands up in the air. “To irritate me? To guilt trip me into ignoring my responsibilities? To barrage me with a never ending sea of questions and statements, designed to trap me in a place of emotional vulnerability?”

The ghost said nothing while Logan let the words flow out of his mouth, calmly waiting for the shouting to stop before he asked one question.

“Is that what you think your friends are doing?”

Logan stared, startled into silence by the question.

“After all,” the ghost pressed on, the calmness of his face slipping away just a little, “everything you’ve seen and heard tonight has not come from me, but from them.”

He smiled a sad smile, and placed both hands on Logan’s shoulders.

“ _That_  is what I want, Logan Sanders. It’s not about you going to the party. It’s about you confronting the  _true_ reason you stopped going in the first place.”

“Stop,” Logan said, shrugging off the spirit’s hands.

“It’s not because you were too busy,” the spirit continued, the glow from his face increasing as he spoke, growing brighter and brighter the more Logan tried to shut him out.

“Be quiet.”

“It’s because you couldn’t face them after that night.”

“Shut  _up!_ ” Logan insisted, squeezing his eyes shut against the spirit’s blinding light.

“Was the atmosphere just too awkward for you, so you decided to just avoid it? Were you worried about what the others would say, so you just didn’t talk to them as much? Were you afraid that they might actually be right?”

“Leave me  _ALONE_ , PATTON!” Logan shouted, opening his eyes to glare at…nothing.  


	5. Practically Present in Every Way

Logan blinked.

He was standing alone in his bedroom; the only light in the room came from the streetlamp shining through the window and the faint glow of his digital clock as it displayed the time.

11:38 pm.

Logan sighed and rubbed his eyes, sitting down on the edge of his bed. Where had  _that_  come from? He typically didn’t dream with such clarity…because that’s what it had been, right? A dream? He must’ve gone to bed early…and then dreamed about Dr. Marley’s ghost coming to haunt him, and then foretell the coming of three  _more_  ghosts, the first of which had actually shown up before Logan had awoken…

Logan sighed again. That explanation was ridiculously complicated, and he knew it. From what he knew about his typical dreaming tendencies, he knew that such an occurrence was possible, but highly unlikely. Then again, so was the likelihood that what had just transpired was actually  _real_. If he chose to apply Ockham’s Razor to the situation, then he had to admit the possibility that he had actually been visited by two spirits…

Logan stood abruptly, and walked to the bathroom. He splashed water on his face, hissing in a breath through his teeth when the cold hit his skin like a proverbial slap to the face. This was ridiculous. The fact that he was even considering the supernatural as a possibility meant that he was much more tired than he thought. Or perhaps he had a fever, that might explain the lucidity of the dreams. At any rate, he really ought to get some rest now.

Logan returned to his bedroom and climbed into bed, closing his laptop and placing it on his nightstand. He was about to remove his glasses when he caught sight of the time again.

11:43pm.

_“Expect the second, on the last chime of midnight.”_

It wouldn’t disrupt his circadian rhythm too much if he stayed awake for seventeen more minutes…just to be sure.

The minutes passed by slowly. Logan tried at first to pass the time by reading, but he found his attention constantly being stolen by the clock as the numbers slowly ticked up. Eventually, he stopped trying to distract himself and just sat in silence, letting his thoughts overtake him as he waited.

11:48pm.

Suppose another spirit did come? What would it try to do?

11:52pm.

Then again, suppose a spirit  _didn’t_  come. What would that say about him? About his state of mind, and about what he had seen—or  _thought_  he had seen—already that night?

11:55pm.

If a spirit didn’t show up, that was good, because it meant that the previous two spirits were imaginary…merely constructs of his mind, not something he had to worry about.

11:57pm.

If a spirit didn’t show up, that was bad, because it meant that the previous two spirits were imaginary…merely constructs of his mind. And what did that say about him? He was having hallucinations of dead men and friends in angelic form, surely that meant he was going crazy.

11:58pm.

He hoped a spirit showed up.

11:59pm.

He hoped a spirit didn’t show up.

In the distance, the bell in the university clock tower toned out the song that chimed at the top of every hour, and then the chimes for the hour began.

Logan found himself holding his breath as he counted them.

One, two, three, four…  
By the time the eleventh chime had sounded, Logan’s heart was pounding so heavily in his chest that he was sure it was audible in the room.

At the twelfth chime, Logan let out his breath. Nothing had happened, no ghost had appeared, and Logan suddenly felt a tension in his chest release. He wasn’t sure what the full extent of the implications were, that there was no ghost, but that was something to ponder in the morning. For now, a glass of ice water and a good night’s sleep were in order. He could worry about what his dreams meant later.

Logan got up to go to the kitchen…and stopped dead in his tracks.

“Roman…what the  _hell_  are you doing?”

Roman—or at least, he  _thought_  it was Roman—was sitting perched on his kitchen counter, completely surrounded by food. Roasted turkeys and hams, baskets of warm homemade bread, piles of fresh fruit and every conceivable kind of dessert all sat in a heap in the center of Logan’s kitchen.

And at the very center of it all was Roman…no, not Roman. As Logan stared at him, he realized there was the same.. _.otherness_  to the person in his kitchen that had surrounded the Ghost of Christmas Past. While he had Roman’s same styled brown hair and hazel eyes, there was a wisdom to his gaze and a weight behind his eyes that suggested that he knew far more than his appearance suggested.

The flowing red robe, gold trim, and holly wreath he wore as a crown also suggested that it was not in fact Roman in his kitchen, but to be fair, the outfit wasn’t too far out of the realm of possibility when it came to Roman.

“Logan Sanders!” The man cried out, lifting up a glass in greeting. “Welcome! Come in, come in and know me better!”

Logan cautiously approached, taking in the spectacle before him. When he met the man’s eyes, familiar and foreign at the same time, he found that he had difficulty speaking. The dozens of questions swirling in his mind died at his lips, and all he managed to say was,

“This is  _my_  kitchen. It doesn’t make sense for  _you_  to welcome me in.”

The man threw back his head and laughed, loud and clear and dramatic, just like Roman did, and Logan had a feeling that this spirit’s demeanor—like the Past’s with Patton—mirrored Roman’s rather closely.

“Of course it doesn’t,” the man laughed. “But then, not everything about me makes sense.”

“So…who are you, then?” Logan asked, and the man slid off the counter and stood to his full height, several inches taller than Logan, just like Roman was.

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Present!” he said, then he smiled and reached out a hand. “Come, let us see what this night has to show us.”

Logan hesitated, then braced himself and took the ghost’s hand. As he did, his feet left the ground and he felt his heart leap into his mouth as yet again he found himself being lifted up into the air. He gripped the ghost’s hand tighter, but as they floated out into the night, he found that his desire for answers overcame his discomfort.

“Did you choose your appearance too?”

The spirit looked over at him, and smiled.

“Indeed! As Past no doubt told you, we have chosen these forms for many reasons. Because they embody what we symbolize, because we feel like they’d be able to get through to you, even because we ourselves may share characteristics with them.”

“Yes…” Logan looked away, frowning. “It’s fair to say that the Ghost of Christmas Past did share some… _traits_  with Patton.”  

The two of them soared out over the streets, wind whistling through their hair. Logan glanced over at the Ghost of Christmas Present as they traveled. Unlike Past, he seemed to be focusing more on  _where_  they were going as they flew, keeping their height relatively low.

“If…” Logan trailed off, unsure of how to voice his thought, or even if he should.

“Go on,” the ghost simply said, and Logan took a deep breath.

“If you’re the ghosts of Christmas…why are you here now? Christmas is still weeks away. When…when the previous spirit showed me…things, none of them were from Christmas Day itself.”

The ghost scoffed, and rolled his eyes.

“It’s called the Christmas season for a reason, Mr. Chemistry Professor. The spirit of Christmas is not confined to a single day…nor are the  _spirits_  of Christmas.” He laughed, and bumped his shoulder against Logan’s. “Don’t be so literal all the time.”

Logan just huffed, and the ghost sighed.

“At any rate, we are here,” he said, and Logan then noticed that they were descending. Their feet touched the ground, and Logan got a good look at the building they had stopped in front of.

“The hospital?” he wondered aloud. “What are we doing here?”  

“This night has many things to show us,” the ghost explained. “Some of them are here. Now come, just let yourself experience the moment, and don’t ask so many questions.”

Logan sighed, but followed the spirit inside anyway. Though Logan had never been to this hospital in particular, the lobby was still familiar in its uniformity. Logan was looking around when he spotted one person he hadn’t counted on seeing.

“Joan?” he whispered.

“Joan!” the woman at the front desk echoed as they approached. “How you doin’ tonight?”

“You know me, Kathy,” Joan said with a small, slightly empty laugh. “Tired.”

“You really need ta stop workin’ yourself so hard, honey,” Kathy tutted. “Or you’ll end up in the bed next to them one of these days.”

Joan smiled ruefully. “Well, if you could tell my boss that sometime, I’d appreciate it.”

“Oh, just point me to his office and I will, sweetheart,” the woman said with a wink. “You know the way?”

“If I didn’t by now, I  _definitely_  need to be in that bed next to them,” Joan said with a tired smile, and after waving to Kathy, they headed off towards the elevators.

The Ghost of Christmas Present followed them, and after a moment, Logan did the same. Joan entered the elevator alone and hit the button for the fourth floor, blissfully unaware of Logan and the ghost standing beside them.

Logan frowned as they ascended, stealing the odd glance at Joan.

“Something wrong?” the ghost asked him, noticing the discomfort.

“It’s…it’s just odd,” Logan admitted. “With the past…those were memories. It made sense that we were only watching from the outside. And they were  _my_  memories…I knew them all. This…to be here but not be here, it feels…strange.”

“I told you,” the ghost said simply, “not everything about me makes sense.”

The elevator dinged, and Logan and his guide followed Joan down the hallway to one of the rooms. As they walked, they nodded hello to a few of the nurses, who all greeted them with a familiar smile and wave. They paused outside a door for a moment, before taking a deep breath and entering the room. Logan and the ghost hovered just behind them, taking everything in.

“Hey,” Joan said softly, a small smile on their face. “How you doing?”

The person in the bed was small and pale, the shades of pinks and blues in their hair standing out starkly against the pillow. They looked up at Joan through a pair of thick lensed glasses and raised an eyebrow.

“I’d say I’m alright. Especially considering that I’m the one in the hospital bed, and _you’re_  the one who looks like you’re about drop dead.”

Joan chuckled and dropped into a chair next to their bed.

“It’s been a long week,” they said with a sigh, taking off their beanie and running a hand through their hair, causing it to stick up in all directions.

“You’ve been staying up too late again, I can tell.”

“It’s not like I have a choice, Talyn,” Joan said in frustration. “I’ve got all my coursework to finish before the semester’s out, plus everything Sanders has me doing,  _and_  my hours at the restaurant. Between all that and seeing you, I—” 

“I told you, I’m  _fine_ ,” Talyn tried to insist, but a coughing fit cut them off and Joan raised an eyebrow at them. “Ok, maybe I’m not fine,” they admitted. “But still, you don’t have to visit quite as often as you do, especially if it’s making you miss work.”

Joan shook their head.

“Not a chance. Besides, my boss at the restaurant gets it, and she’s adjusted my hours a bit to account for my travel time from the hospital.”

Talyn huffed and folded their arms.

“Would it be too much for Sanders to do the same? He’s killing you these days.”

“Trust me, I don’t think it’d help,” Joan said with a sigh. “His cousin came in the other day…was saying something about him coming to some party. Sanders shot him down pretty hard.”

“You’d think he’d at least lighten up a bit at Christmas,” Talyn said, before dissolving into another coughing fit.

“Hey, take it easy,” Joan said, reaching out and taking their hand. “You need to stop getting so worked up about this. I can handle it.”

Talyn coughed a few more times, then treated Joan to a simmering glare.

“I’ll get as worked up about it as I want. And you can  _not_  handle it. I know this degree is important to you, and I’m proud of you for making it this far, but look at you. You’re barely getting by, in more ways than one.”

Joan waved their hand dismissively.

“It’s not like I’m the only underpaid grad student in history or anything.”

“No, this isn’t about the money,” Talyn insisted. “I get that grad assistants don’t get paid a lot, that’s not any one person’s fault. The system is flawed and it sucks, but that’s got nothing to do with the way Sanders treats you.”

“I…” Joan sighed and ran a hand through their hair again. “I know he doesn’t treat me well, but there’s not a lot I can really do about it.”   
“Complain to the board or something!”

“He’s  _on_  the board, Talyn. He’s the head of the whole chemistry department, why would they take my word over his?”

“I don’t care if he’s the dean of the whole university! If he’s an asshole, then he’s an asshole!”

“Well, I can’t say I like their datemate very much,” Logan muttered to the Ghost of Christmas Present.

The ghost threw his head back and laughed. “I think it’s fair to say that they feel the same way about you!” he wheezed out, before dissolving into another fit of laughter.

“It’s not funny,” Logan said, frowning and crossing his arms.

“Yes it is,” the ghost giggled, wiping a tear from his eye. “I’m imagining what they’d say to you if they knew you were here. They’d tear you a new one for sure.”

“Now listen,” Logan started to say, but stopped when he heard Joan’s voice again.

“Talyn, please,” they said with a small smile. “I don’t like him either, but he’s still the head of the department. I’m lucky to be able to learn from him. Even if he is hard to deal with.”

“Joan—”

“Please let’s just not talk about it right now, ok?” Joan begged, squeezing Talyn’s hand. “He’s not what’s most important.”

“Joan, if you go off on some tangent about how I should be the focus right now because I’m in the hospital, I’m gonna punch your stupid face,” Talyn said. Joan laughed, and Talyn pouted, folding their arms across their chest. “I mean it! I really will” they insisted, and Joan laughed again, softer this time.

“No, you won’t,” they said, lifting Talyn’s hand to their mouth and planting a kiss on their knuckles.  

Talyn pouted again and pulled their hand away, but the smirk that played at the corner of their lips betrayed their true feelings.

“Okay, maybe I won’t,” they admitted, and they coughed again. “But if I wasn’t stuck like this, I totally would!”

“Of course, dear,” Joan said with a wink. “Now, can you please just let it go? For me?”

“I’m  _angry_  for you, why would I let it go for you?”

“Okay then, will you let it go because it’s Christmas?”

Talyn rolled their eyes, but nodded.

“Oh, alright. Because it’s Christmas, and because you ask me to, I’ll let it go. But the  _instant_  the clock strikes midnight on New Years, I’ll go right on back to being very vocal about my hatred for Logan Sanders, okay?”

“Okay,” Joan agreed, smiling fondly.

Before either of them could speak further, a nurse came and poked his head into the room.

“Excuse me, but it’s time to switch out Talyn’s IV bags.”

Joan moved aside to let the nurse work, and as the room fell into silence, Logan caught a glimpse of tension on his grad assistant’s face. Talyn coughed again as the nurse changed their fluids, and it suddenly struck Logan again how  _small_  Talyn seemed, how their skin rivaled Virgil’s in paleness and how much effort it took for them to speak.

“What…what exactly is wrong with them?” Logan found himself asking, and for once, the frivolity left the Ghost of Christmas Present’s face.

“It may be easier to say what  _isn’t_  wrong with them,” he sighed. “That’s certainly what the doctors know. All they know for certain is they have some form of autoimmune deficiency, and that their asthma just complicates things further.”

“If these doctors can’t help then why don’t they see a specialist?”

The ghost scoffed.

“With what money? The two of them can barely afford rent every month, what makes you think they can afford health insurance? And Joan’s already neck deep in student debt, and their degree isn’t even finished yet.” The ghost turned and raised an eyebrow at Logan. “But I’m sure you’d rather be s _pared the irrelevant details_.” 

Logan opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. He looked away, but unfortunately the only place to look that didn’t involve him looking at the ghost was directly at Joan and Talyn, and that wasn’t much better.

“Will…will they be alright?” he managed to stammer out, and the ghost sighed.

“They’ll probably spend this Christmas in the hospital. If nothing changes…who knows how many Christmases they’ll have left?”

“What, you don’t know?” Logan asked.

“I am the Ghost of Christmas  _Present_ , Logan. It is not my place to know.” He placed a hand on Logan’s shoulder and the two began to float upwards again, leaving the two alone in their hospital room. “Come, let us see another gathering.”


	6. Fake Smiles and False Hopes

Logan and the Ghost flew away from the hospital back towards the residential part of town. They were silent as they traveled, and for the first time that night Logan noticed the cold in the air as the wind blew against his skin. The snow from earlier had stopped, leaving the city covered in the unnatural quiet that can only follow a heavy snowfall.

When Logan and the ghost landed a few minutes later on a very familiar street, their surroundings were so utterly silent that Logan almost believed that the ghost had stopped time altogether.

“Okay,” Logan said, still not meeting the ghost’s eyes. “I know where we are. But why are we here?”

The ghost chuckled, and headed up the steps of the house that stood before them.

“Why? Because you were invited,” he said with a smirk.

Logan tilted his head in confusion for a moment, then the memory came flooding back into his mind.

_“I came to ask that if you won’t come tomorrow, if you’d at least come over for drinks with us tonight.”_  

He sighed, but followed the ghost up the steps and through Roman’s front door. If he had to go through with this, at least he wouldn’t have to deal with the awkwardness of the others being able to  _see_  him.

Roman’s home was elegant, if a little fanciful for Logan’s personal tastes, and the Christmas decorations on display were no exception. A massive Christmas wreath made from real pine hung on the door, and a bunch of mistletoe was directly overhead in the entryway. Roman’s tree was wrapped in gold garland and decorated with delicate red and gold ornaments that glittered spectacularly under the strands of lights wrapped around the tree and along the mantle. A fire was crackling pleasantly in the fireplace, and the whole scene looked like something out of a Christmas card.

While the living room certainly appeared idyllic, it was noticeably empty. Voices drifted from down the hall, and Logan and the ghost followed the sound through Roman’s home to the kitchen, where the actor had set up a mini-bar on his kitchen island.

Roman himself was standing behind the island, holding the cocktail shaker up over his head while Virgil tried to snatch it away from him.

“C’mon, Princey, hand it over.”

“It’s my mini-bar, Holiday Queer!”

“Yeah, well I’m the one who mixes drinks for a living!”

“You mix lattes!”

“Same principle!”

The two of them continued to bicker good naturedly with each other, while Thomas slipped in behind them and grabbed a bottle of chocolate bourbon. He poured two glasses of it and slid one across the counter to Patton, who was hunched over on one of Roman’s barstools, tracing the pattern in the granite with his fingertips.

“Hey, you,” Thomas said, sitting down next to Patton and nudging him on the shoulder. “You’ve been kinda quiet. Which is honestly kinda unusual for you,” he added, raising an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Hm?” Patton looked up, then smiled brightly when he met Thomas’s eyes. “Oh, sorry about that, Kiddo! I must be a bit more tired than I thought!”

“Patton,” Thomas said, his voice gentle but firm. Virgil and Roman froze in a somewhat comical pose at the sound of his voice, and an awkward silence fell over the gathering.

Patton looked around the room at everyone, the smile still plastered to his face, but the act wasn’t even fooling Logan at this point.

“W-what is it?” he asked, and Virgil raised an eyebrow at him.

“You’re fake smiling again,” was all he said, and Patton’s expression crumpled.

“I…I am?” he whispered, and Roman nodded. “Oh…s-sorry about that, guys,” Patton chuckled. “I guess I was trying to stay Christmas cheer-ful, ha ha…ha…”

“Hey, no worries, Padre,” Roman said. His voice was uncharacteristically soft, a tone he typically reserved for more serious moments. “It’s been quite awhile since you’ve done that. I’d call that an improvement, wouldn’t you?”

“Not to mention you’ve actually gotten pretty bad at it,” Virgil added. “I mean, we were able to see through it instantly.”

To an untrained ear this may have sounded like the wrong thing to say, but everyone in the room (including Logan) knew Virgil well enough to know that he was actually being encouraging. Patton smiled, a real smile this time, but it wasn’t long before the smile faded and he was left staring at the pattern on the countertop again.

Virgil edged closer, folding his arms and leaning over the counter so he was eye level with Patton.

“Is this about what happened earlier?” he asked quietly, and Patton nodded.

“What? What happened earlier?” Roman asked.

“I…I went to the university today,” Patton admitted, “and…I invited Logan over tonight.”

The moment Logan’s name was said, the whole dynamic of the room changed. Virgil’s expression softened even more, Thomas leaned back from the bar as his eyes grew tired, and Roman…Roman looked  _angry._

“Did he slam the door in your face, too?” he asked with a huff.

“Easy, Princey,” Virgil muttered, shooting Roman a warning look.

Behind them, Logan folded his arms and frowned at the ground.

“I didn’t slam it in  _his_  face,” he muttered, and the ghost rolled his eyes.

“Ah yes, because slamming it in his  _students’_  faces while he stands around the corner is  _totally_  better.”

Logan opened his mouth to fire back, but was stopped when he heard Patton’s voice again.

“Well, no…not physically anyway.”

“Not  _physically_?” Roman exclaimed. “So he  _did_  slam a metaphorical door in your emotional face? How is that better?!”

“ _Roman_!” Virgil hissed, glaring openly at the actor.

“What?!”

_Not helping,_  Virgil mouthed, looking pointedly towards Patton, then back to Roman again.

“Oh…yes, of course. Apologies, Patton, I—”

“It’s okay, Roman,” Patton interrupted with a small smile. “I get it. But really, it’s no big deal.”

“Except…it  _is_  kinda a big deal, Pat,” Virgil said gently, reaching over to take Patton’s hand.

“Indeed!” Roman agreed, nodding fervently. “As your friends, your emotional well being is of the utmost importance to us! And the fact that it has been compromised, at the hands of another one of our party, no less, is an atrocity that I shall not stand for!” He struck a pose as he finished his sentence, which made Patton giggle.

“Aww, that’s sweet of you, Kiddo,” he said. “But really, I’m alright.” He shrugged, and looked down again. “It’s my own fault really, for bothering him.”

“Don’t do that, Pat,” Virgil insisted. “Don’t blame yourself for something you have no control of.”

“But, he didn’t listen to  _Thomas_  of all people; I shouldn’t have assumed he’d listen to  _me_ , and now I’ve just made everything worse…”

“No you haven’t,” Logan muttered to himself, and the Ghost of Christmas Present glanced over at him with a smirk.

“What was that?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows, and Logan glared at him.

“No, you haven’t, Patton,” Thomas said before Logan could come up with an appropriate comeback. “Logan may be my family, but the two of you have always been closer. If he was going to listen to  _any_  of us, I’d have bet on you.”

“Yeah, but he  _didn’t_ listen to me,” Patton said, a tremor creeping into his voice. “He didn’t listen to me…you know,  _before_ , and he certainly won’t listen to me now…” he hiccuped, and put his head in his hands. “I just don’t know what to  _do_.”

A heavy silence fell over the little assembly as Roman, Virgil and Thomas exchanged glances with one another over Patton’s head. Virgil was the first to speak, coming around the kitchen island to stand next to Patton.

“Hey, Patton?” he asked, his voice impossibly soft.

Patton lifted his head just enough to peer out and meet Virgil’s gaze.

“Hmm?”

“You know none of this is your fault, right?”

Patton took a breath and opened his mouth to speak, but Virgil shook his head.

“Seriously, Pat. None of this is your fault. It’s not your fault that Logan let that scumbag of a professor have his way, it’s not your fault he won’t answer my messages, it’s not your fault he was an asshole to Roman, alright?” He took Patton’s hands away from his face and squeezed them for emphasis. “It’s not. Your. Fault.”

“I…” Patton sighed. “I know it’s technically not, but…I just can’t shake that feeling, you know? Like…what if I had done or said something different, would it be different now? Would he still…” he sniffled, hunching his shoulders and screwing his eyes shut.

“Hey now, it’s alright,” Virgil soothed, stroking Patton’s hands with his thumb. “Don’t think like that. Being a second guessing, self-deprecating mess is my gig, remember?”

Patton let out a strangled laugh.

“I-I’ll physically f-fight you,” he said, bumping his shoulder against Virgil’s.

“There’s our little puffball,” Roman said with a chuckle.

“Haha, yeah…” Patton offered up a small smile to the others. “Sorry guys…I didn’t mean to bring the mood down like this, I just—”

“Ah ah ah, no apologizing, remember?” Roman interrupted. “It’s not your fault. Besides…I think we all kinda feel the same way.”

Thomas nodded in agreement, and Virgil grimaced.

“We’d be lying to ourselves if we didn’t acknowledge that we all wonder what’re could have done differently from time to time, Patton,” Thomas said. “It’s hard not to feel that…that we failed him, somehow.”

“But ultimately, we can’t control what people do or how they think,” Virgil added. “If he truly believes that…I dunno, that we’re trying to sabotage his career or whatever Marley convinced him of…there’s not a lot we can do.”

Patton nodded, taking a deep breath, before smiling up at them.

“Besides what we’ve always done,” he added. “Reaching out, and being his friend, no matter what! You’re right…thanks, guys.” He beamed, then lifted up his untouched glass of bourbon. “To friendship!” he exclaimed, and after exchanging a quick glance, the others smiled and lifted up their glasses as well.

“To friendship!” they agreed, all taking sips from their drinks in unison.

Logan watched them, a strange, hollow feeling in his chest.

“To friendship,” he muttered, staring down at the ground as the conversation turned to the topic of Patton’s party, and the preparations that still had to be made. Their voices washed over him, but he didn’t want to listen anymore, didn’t want to hear their plans or watch them have a good time. He’d done enough already, it seemed.

* * *

After a time, a sentence caught his attention and he unwittingly began paying attention again.

“Do you need a ride?”

“No, I walked here, I can walk home.”

“Patton, it’s dark out there, and besides, it’s started snowing again! I won’t have you catching your death of cold, or getting hurt because you don’t want to inconvenience me,” Roman insisted, grabbing his car keys and placing a hand firmly on Patton’s shoulder.  

“Stubbornness doesn’t suit you, Pat,” Virgil added with a smirk. “Leave it to the cynical ones. You know, like Ro and I.”

“I will fight you,” Patton said again, but his eyes were full of laughter, the traces of sadness from earlier all but gone. Roman waved as the two of them headed past where Logan stood with the ghost, calling to the others that he’d be back soon but for them to make themselves at home in the meantime.

As soon as they heard the door shut, the smiles fell from both Thomas and Virgil’s faces as they made grim eye contact.

“Well?” Virgil asked, and Thomas sighed.

“He’s not giving up on him.” Thomas lifted his half finished drink and twisted his wrist, watching the ice spin and swirl around as it clanked against the sides of the glass. “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

“I mean, we’re not giving up on him either,” Virgil pointed out.

“Well of course not. How can I?” Thomas set his drink down again. “He’s like my kid brother…and honestly, so is Patton.”

“Which is why this sucks so much,” Virgil pointed out, and Thomas sighed again.

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

“You want to help Logan…but you also want to protect Patton. And it’s starting to look like you can’t do both.” Virgil had hopped up to sit on the counter, and had his chin in his hands.

Thomas chuckled, before taking a sip of his drink.

“That about sums it up. Why are you always so good at this? Is it the artist’s instincts?”

Virgil shrugged.

“That, or the fact that my big brother’s a therapist. Either way, man, I can see that it’s bothering you.”

“You just…you should have  _heard_  him, Virgil. He’s always been analytical, but he’s been growing so much…” Thomas shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Colder,” Virgil said quietly, and Thomas nodded. Virgil sighed. “Yeah, that’s what Pat said when he told me about today, too.” He reached into the back pocket of his skinny jeans and pulled out his phone, scrolling through quickly before shaking his head and slipping it back in its place.

“He hasn’t answered any of my texts all week, and he hasn’t been into the cafe at all. That’s unusual, even for him.”

“Maybe he really is as busy as he says he is?” Thomas suggested.

“Maybe…” Virgil shrugged. “I dunno though, I don’t think that’s it.”

“Then what?”

“I think…I think he’s trying to shut us out completely.”  

Thomas grimaced.

“I wanna think you’re wrong…”

“Trust me, so do I,” Virgil agreed, looking down.

“But you may be right,” Thomas continued. “And if you are…”

“We’re gonna have to stop Patton.” Virgil’s voice was barely audible, and he looked as though he’d just suggested putting down a newborn kitten. “Otherwise, he’ll just keep trying, and then…”

“He’ll get hurt,” Thomas finished.

Virgil hopped off the counter and began pacing back and forth across the kitchen.

“Why does this have to be so difficult? Why won’t he just  _answer_ , why won’t he just talk to us?”

“Well, you know Logan,” Thomas said, shaking his head. “He’d rather die than admit he was wrong about something. Even to himself.”

“ _Stop_ ,” Logan muttered, hardly even realizing he’d spoken aloud until the ghost beside him responded.

“Something wrong?” he asked, and Logan snapped his head up, a deep scowl on his face.

“Something  _wrong?_ ” he repeated. “Of course something’s  _wrong_ , you know exactly what’s  _wrong_. You’re the one who brought me here! You knew this would happen!”  

“Knew what would happen?”

“Stop playing  _dumb_  with me!” Logan shouted. He turned from the scene in the kitchen and stalked away, not caring where he was going.

* * *

Somehow he ended up outside; the snow gently falling around him had lost the magic it seemed to hold, now it was just cold, dark, and wet. Logan’s shoulders were shaking, though from cold or from something else, he wasn’t sure. He wrapped his arms around himself and kept walking, his eyes fixed firmly on the ground, not expecting to bump into anything when he could phase right through people and objects.

So when he bumped right into the very warm and solid chest of the Ghost of Christmas Present, he was more than a little surprised.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked Logan, not unkindly.

“I don’t know,” Logan answered flatly. “Away from here.”

“You truly must be desperate to run away from your problems, if you think you can avoid me,” the ghost said, raising an eyebrow.

“Stop! Just stop!” Logan insisted. “You don’t know me, you  _don’t_ , you can’t just come in here and tell me how to live my life!”

“Now when exactly did I do that?” the ghost asked coyly, and Logan glared at him.

“Why don’t you all just leave me  _alone!_ ” he cried, lunging forward, intending on shoving the ghost away.

But as his hands reached where the spirit’s body appeared to be, they pushed right through, as they did with the rest of the scenery, and Logan stumbled forward at the surprising lack of support. When he regained his footing and looked around, the snow covered street and elegantly robed spirit were gone, replaced by his noticeably empty kitchen. The last echoes of a far off clock chiming reached his ears, and he glanced at the display on his microwave just in time to see the numbers change from 12:00 to 12:01. 


	7. Facing the Future

Logan sat in his armchair with his eyes wide open, a cup of tea sitting untouched on the table beside him. He wasn’t sure how long ago he’d brewed the cup, as he was pointedly ignoring any sort of time-keeping device. Initially, he thought that exhaustion would claim him before he could witness any more supernatural phenomenon, but first the clock tower chimed one, then two am and he knew he’d be awake without fail at three am.

The Devil’s Hour.

The time Marley had warned the third and final spirit would appear. Logan had no reason to assume now that this third spirit wouldn’t appear. Either he was too deep into the delusion now to escape…or it was all really happening. Logan didn’t particularly like either of those prospects, but he had no choice now but to see this journey, or whatever it could be called, to the end.

After what felt like an eternity, yet also strangely felt like no time at all, Logan once again heard the clock chime out its song.

_“Expect the third on the first chime of the devil’s hour.”_

Logan stood up and straightened his glasses.

“I’m ready for you,” he said into the darkness as the first chime of the clock rang through the air.

“I do not think you are, Logan Sanders,” an all too familiar voice said from behind him as the clock chimed a second time. “Nobody ever is.”

Logan turned around as the clock chimed its final chime, and faced the third and final spirit.

It was tall, taller than any of the others had been, though Logan soon saw that was because it wasn’t standing like the others had. It was floating several inches off the ground, the long hem of its dark purple cloak obscuring any view of its feet. Logan might have mistaken it for a floating cloak with no one wearing it…if it weren’t for the face peering down at him from underneath the hood.

It was Virgil’s face, purple bangs falling over his dark, piercing eyes. Virgil’s usual dusting of eyeshadow was amplified, trailing down the figure’s pale cheeks, making them appear almost white as he stared unblinking down at Logan.

This spirit was not peaceful like the past, nor was it jolly like the present. But as Logan stared up into its eyes, a small smile graced its lips, and Logan knew that it was also not malicious or evil. It was merely…uncertain. Unknowable, almost, and yet Logan knew what name to call it.

“Are you the Ghost of Christmas Future?” he asked. The spirit’s smile widened, and it nodded. “Then you are the third and final spirit whose coming was foretold to me?” The spirit nodded again, and Logan took a deep breath. “Very well,” he said. “Let me see what you have come to show me.”

“Before we begin,” the spirit warned in Virgil’s quiet, steady voice, “know this. I am not like the others. They show things that have been, or things that are. Past is carved in stone; Present is caught up in the moment.” He spread his arms wide, the cloak billowing around him as he spoke. “I am neither of these things. I am fluid, changing, as dependent on humanity as humanity is on me. What you see may not be clear.”  

He reached out, offering a pale, bony hand to Logan.

“And yet, they are things you must see, if you truly wish to understand. Do you?”

Logan nodded, and the ghost smiled another quiet smile.

“Then come, Logan Sanders. Let us see what the future may hold.”

Logan took the offered hand, expecting to float into the air like he had with the others, but instead when he touched the spirit’s skin, the world around them faded away in a swirl of blackness, until the only visible things were the spirit beside him and Logan himself.

Before Logan could even ask what was happening, the spirit held up his free hand and a scene began forming into view in front of them. The colors were faded and washed out, like a photo with nearly all its color saturation drained away, and everything was hazy at the edges, blurring away if Logan wasn’t focused directly on it.

Logan blinked, trying to adjust to this new way of seeing, and as he did he realized he recognized the location swirling into view before him. It was the hallway outside his office. He was about to ask the spirit what they were there to see when the door burst open and Joan practically ran out of the office, letting the door slam shut behind them. Logan took an involuntary step back, even as Joan passed harmlessly through him as usual. He expected to see some version of himself follow, but the door stayed shut and the ghost turned to follow Joan rather than enter Logan’s office.

Logan glanced behind them, but followed the ghost as Joan rounded a corner and finally stopped, pressing themselves up against a wall and sliding to the ground. Their breathing was heavy, and their eyes were squeezed shut, though that wasn’t enough to stop a few tears from leaking out. Logan looked over at the ghost, but he was silent, watching the scene before them gravely.

Joan reached into their pocket with shaking hands and pulled out their phone, bringing it up to their ear as another tear slid down their face.

“Talyn?” they gasped as soon as their call was answered. “I can’t do this anymore…I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but I can’t do it, I c-can’t, I—”

Logan couldn’t hear what Talyn was saying on the other line, but Joan was nodding to whatever it was, and  then they were breathing, tapping a somewhat steady beat with a shaking hand. Logan recognized the pattern with a start, it was the same four, seven, eight breathing exercise Virgil used when he was having a panic attack.

“Okay…” Joan said shakily after a few minutes of breathing. “Okay, I’m…I’m alright now.

They listened intently as Talyn said something on the other line, then let out a watery laugh.

“You’re right…” they said, then sighed. “You were right all along, and I didn’t see it, I’m sorry…I’ll make it right. We’ll make it right together if we have to, we…we’ll be okay…”

They shakily climbed to their feet and started walking down the hall, but this time the ghost didn’t follow, letting the darkness swirl back in around them.

_“We’ll be okay…”_

As the scene faded away and a new one took its place, Logan glanced up at the Ghost of Christmas Future.

“What…what happened to them?” he asked, but the ghost didn’t respond, merely nodded to the newly developing scene.

* * *

It was the lobby of Roman’s theater, and a group of the college aged kids who were in his troop were hanging around and goofing off. One girl was reading a copy of what looked like a university newsletter when one of her friends grabbed it playfully and held it over their head.

“Hey!”

The kids laughed and all made grabs for the paper, chasing each other in circles in a desperate game of free for all…until Roman came in and, easily being taller than all of them, snatched it out of their hands.

“Alright, alright, settle down,” he chuckled. “C’mon now, rehearsal starts in less than five minutes, and we have a lot to go over today, let’s go.”

The kids grumbled and bickered with each other in a good natured sort of way as they shuffled away towards the stage entrance. Roman smiled fondly at them, then glanced down at the newspaper he was holding. His smile froze, then he did a double take, staring down at the paper in horror.

“Monica!” he called frantically to one of the kids as they were heading into the next room.

“Yeah, Roman?”

“Can you start rehearsal for me? I…I have to make a phone call.”

“Sure thing,” she agreed, and as soon as she was gone Roman whipped out his phone and dialed a number, tapping his foot impatiently as he waited for the other person to pick up the line.

“Thomas!” he cried as soon as he had a connection. “Have you heard from Logan lately?” He paused as he listened to Thomas’s response, then rubbed his temples with his thumb and forefinger. “Well, has Patton? Or even Virgil?”

He sighed, and plopped down on one of the lobby’s couches.

“Why? I’ll tell you why, I’m holding a copy of the university newspaper…Logan’s been suspended.”

* * *

“Wait,  _what?_ ” Logan exclaimed as the ghost lifted his hand and the scene faded away into nothingness. “Suspended? How did that happen?”

The spirit looked over at him, and quirked up one eyebrow.

“Watch,” was all he said as a new scene appeared before them.

They were back in Roman’s house, a new year of decorations adorning the room. None of the people gathered seemed to be very interested in the decor as they all sat solemnly in Roman’s living room.

Patton was on the couch, leaning up against Thomas’s side with eyes puffy and red. Roman sat next to them in an armchair, his head on his chin, while Virgil perched on a futon pulled up next to the couch. Thomas was gently running a hand through Patton’s hair, doing his best to soothe him.

“He, he wouldn’t even let me  _talk_ ,” Patton was gasping for air as he talked, new tears joining old tracks on his face. He’d obviously been crying for a long time. “He j-just… _yelled_  at me, said that I’d done enough to ruin h-him, and that he d-didn’t need me, need me gloating on t-top of, on t-top…”

“It’s okay, Patton,” Thomas murmured, shushing him as he desperately tried to speak. “Just take your time. You’re doing great.”

“He…he was so… so  _upset_ ,” Patton shuddered, trying to calm his breathing. “He…he was angry, but he wasn’t  _just_  angry, he seemed so…so  _broken_ , and I-I couldn’t…c-couldn’t…” Patton buried his face into Thomas’s shoulder and cried, his rasping sobs now the only sound that filled the room.

Roman looked down at his hands, and Virgil made eye contact with Thomas over Patton’s head. Thomas looked utterly lost as he desperately tried to keep everything together, and Virgil’s eyes were filled with a heavy understanding.

The emo slid off his futon, and made his way over to the couch where Thomas and Patton were perched.

“Hey, Pat?” he asked gently, placing a hand on the shaking man’s shoulder.

“Y-yeah, Virge?” Patton managed to reply, peeking up at Virgil from beneath Thomas’s arm.

“There…there wasn’t anything you could have done. No, just listen,” Virgil insisted when he saw Patton open his mouth in protest. “You were a great friend. The best you possibly could have been. But sometimes…that isn’t enough. And that’s  _not_  your fault, you hear me? If he decided not to listen to you…then that was his choice.”

“L-Logan…Logan is better than this,” Patton murmured, to no one in particular. “I know he is…”

Roman and Virgil exchanged glances, and Roman sighed.

“We…we all want to believe that, Padre. But he…he’s changed. He’s changed a  _lot_  and we may have to acknowledge that the Logan that we used to know…isn’t around anymore.”

“Don’t…don’t say that, Roman, that’s not true,” Patton protested. “Thomas, tell them that it’s not t-true!”

Thomas sighed, and wrapped his arms tighter around Patton’s shoulders.

“It…it might be, Patton,” he whispered, and there were tears in his eyes, and Roman couldn’t look at them as Virgil placed his free hand on Thomas’s knee, the four of them sitting in a sickening solidarity that none of them wanted.


	8. Opportunities Lost

Logan stared in disbelief at the sight of Patton sobbing his heart out, but before he could even properly process it, the scene began to shift and change again. Logan gripped the spirit’s arm tighter as the vision of his four heartbroken friends faded away.

“Wait! What _happened?_ ” he pleaded. “What…why would I say that? How  _could_  I say those things, to  _Patton_  of all people, I…” Logan trailed off as the ghost turned to him, his expression solemn. 

He considered the fact that, if he were mad enough, he  _could_  see himself saying things similar to what Patton had described.

“Patience,” was all the ghost said, before he turned back to watch as yet again a new scene appeared before them.

They were watching Joan again, following them as they walked out of the science building at the university and down the street. Logan recognized the route they were taking, and glanced up at the spirit.

“Are we going where I think we’re going?” he asked, and while the ghost didn’t respond, he did smile down at Logan before turning his gaze back towards Joan.

Sure enough, the two of them were soon following Joan through the doors of  _The Gallery_ , Virgil’s cafe. Logan glanced around the warmly lit space as Joan stood in line for coffee. It showed how long it’d been since he’d been there that even in this muted color scheme, he could tell Virgil had made quite a few changes. The art on display was different, of course, but Virgil updated those displays once a week. What struck Logan the most was the difference in furniture arrangement, and the addition of several new menu items, all named after classic art pieces and artists, as usual.

“What name on your order?” the girl behind the counter asked, pulling Logan out of his thoughts.

“Joan.”  

“Joan? Joan Stokes?” a voice echoed, causing both Logan and Joan to turn.

Thomas was seated at one of the tables, a cup of coffee in his hands. Virgil was sitting across from him, and now both of them were looking over at Joan with interest.

“Yes?” Joan asked hesitantly.

“I thought I recognized you. You were my cousin’s grad assistant, weren’t you?” Thomas asked.

“Oh…you mean Dr. Sanders? Uh, y-yeah, I uh, I was,” Joan said, suddenly looking very uncomfortable.

Thomas picked up on their discomfort quickly, and smiled a warm smile.

“Don’t worry, I’m not mad, and I’m not going to yell at you or anything.” He nodded towards the coffee that was now being pushed across the counter towards them. “Do you have a minute to sit with us?”

Joan shrugged.

“Sure, I guess,” they said, reaching into their pocket to retrieve their wallet.

“Don’t worry about that,” Virgil piped up from behind Thomas. He nodded to the girl working the counter. “Put it on the house, Ari.” The girl nodded, then smiled at Joan before turning her attention to the next customer.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Joan started, but Virgil waved them off.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s the least we can do.”

“I’m sorry, I’m still not sure what this is about?” Joan asked, taking a sip of their coffee.

“Well, first of all, I’m Thomas Sanders, and this is my friend Virgil Picani,” Thomas said.

Virgil smiled at Joan and threw them a two fingered salute.

“Uh, I’m Joan. Joan Stokes, they/them pronouns, please.”

Thomas smiled and nodded, but his smile quickly faded and he looked down at his hands.

“So, um…haha, I don’t really know what to say,” he admitted. “I didn’t plan this or anything, I just…I saw you there, and I felt like I had to talk to you, um…”

Virgil rolled his eyes fondly, taking a drag from his own mug of coffee.

“You’re the one that filed the complaint, aren’t you?” he asked matter-of-factly, looking at Joan with one eyebrow raised. “The one that led to Logan’s suspension.”

Joan stiffened as they looked back and forth between Virgil and Thomas.

“Uhhh, I, uh…” they stammered, but Thomas shook his head quickly.

“No no, it’s not like that! I figured it must have been you, that’s why I wanted to talk to you. But I’m not mad at you or anything, Joan. In fact…” Thomas took a deep breath, then smiled again. “I think it took a lot of courage for you to do what you did. It’s commendable.”  

“I just…didn’t want to work with him anymore,”Joan admitted. “I was only trying to see if I could get transferred to another professor or something. I didn’t mean for him to get suspended on grounds of verbal abuse.”

“That’s not your fault,” Virgil insisted. “He…well, he’s complicated, but that doesn’t excuse how he treated you.”

“That’s what Talyn says too,” Joan admitted, smiling a little.

“Talyn?” Virgil asked.

“My partner…they’re the one who convinced me to file a complaint.”

Virgil nodded appreciatively.

“They sound smart,” he said, and Joan visibly relaxed a bit.

“And that’s why I wanted to talk to you,” Thomas added. “Logan…he’s my cousin, but he’s like a little brother to me. My dad raised both of us together, and after everything that’s happened, I feel as though I owe you an apology.”

Joan shook their head, smiling a bit more warmly.

“No no, that’s alright. It wasn’t your fault either; I certainly don’t blame you.”

“Maybe not,” Thomas smiled back. “But still. If you ever need anything, let me know.”  

“Thank you,” Joan said as the scene began fading away from Logan’s vision. “I will.”

* * *

“Verbal abuse?!” Logan asked quietly as the last remnants of the vision disappeared. “How…how did that happen?“

The ghost looked down at him, a solemn yet slightly amused expression on his face.

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Future, Logan. You know your past better than I.”

Logan’s face burned, and he looked away, folding his arms.

“I think you’ve made yourself clear,” he said quietly.

“Perhaps,” the ghost said, and Logan caught a hint of sympathy in his voice. “But we are not yet finished here.”

Logan looked up to see another vision, this one even blurrier around the edges, with the perspective farther away than the others had been. It showed Joan introducing Talyn to Thomas and Virgil in  _The Gallery,_  Talyn looking impossibly thin, but excited. He saw their mouths moving, but couldn’t make out what they were saying; it was as if he was trying to listen to them from underwater.

The image shifted, and it showed everyone gathered at Roman’s theater, presumably after a performance judging by the massive bouquet of roses Patton had shoved excitedly into Roman’s arms. Roman was in costume, and from the looks of things was complimenting Talyn’s eyeshadow, which even in near grayscale Logan could tell was impressive.

Another shift, and this time it was just Patton, sitting alone in a rocking chair with a giant basket of different colored yarns at his feet and a list in his hand. He was writing Joan and Talyn’s names at the bottom of the list, and was about to put the piece of paper aside before something stopped him. He looked at the first name on the list,  _Logan_  scrawled in a handwriting so messy that it betrayed the youth of the person who had written it. Patton stared at the name for a moment, then sighed and picked up a pencil on the table beside him and quickly drew a line through the name, crossing it out. Quickly, as if he was trying to keep from changing his mind, he shoved the list back into the basket of yarn and picked out the first ball to begin setting his needle with.

Yet another shift, and it was Patton’s house, modest in comparison to Roman’s but filled with the same warmth and holiday cheer from the tiny apartment back from his first year of teaching. Everyone was wearing Patton’s creations, including Joan and Talyn who were sporting matching elf costume patterns on their sweaters. Roman lifted a glass, everyone toasted to the holiday, and towards the back of the crowd of people, Logan saw Virgil put a comforting arm around Patton’s shoulders.

Logan felt the hollowness in his chest grow again at the sight, the emptiness he’d tried so hard to ignore, but couldn’t escape no matter what he tried.

“Please,” he murmured, but the ghost either did not hear him or refused to stop.

* * *

Once again, the world shifted around them, and this time the edges were not as blurry as they had been and the sounds were not as muted, evidently this scene had something the ghost wanted him to see more than a few moments of.

Logan leaned forward to get a look, and his stomach twisted unpleasantly as he did. It was the hospital again, and there lying in the bed looking impossibly tiny, was Talyn. Joan stood close by, looking more worried than Logan had ever seen them and clutching Talyn’s hand. A nurse scribbled something on their chart, then turned to leave, and was nearly run over by Patton as he barrelled past.

“Where are they, are they alright?” he asked frantically, and Talyn laughed from their bed, coughing a little as they did so.

“I’m fine Patton… _aaand_  everyone else, too,” they added their eyes growing wide as Thomas, Roman, and Virgil filed into the room behind Patton.

Roman was carrying an enormous teddy bear, Thomas a bouquet of flowers, and Virgil a brown paper bag.

“Thanks for coming, you guys,” Joan said. Their voice was quiet and strained, but a smile managed to worm its way onto their face at the sight of all their friends.

“Of course, Joan,” Thomas replied, placing the flowers down on the table beside Talyn’s bed. “We wouldn’t miss it.”

“Here,” Virgil added, holding out the bag to Joan. “I figured neither of you had eaten, so I brought you some cookies from the cafe.”

Joan reached into the bag, and Talyn leaned forward eagerly.

“Did you bring me a screamer?” they asked, trying to peer around Joan’s shoulder to see the contents of the bag.

Virgil chuckled as Joan pulled out two sugar cookies decorated with frosting to look like the head of the figure in Edvard Munch’s  _The Scream_.

“Of course I did,” he said, as Talyn grinned and took one of the cookies.  

“I have no doubt that you shall conquer this beast!” Roman piped up from the corner where he was trying to get the teddy bear to sit up straight in one of the chairs…and failing spectacularly. “You’ll vanquish your foe and be right as rain in no time at all!”

“Thanks, Roman,” Talyn grinned, but was interrupted by another coughing fit. Frightened glances were exchanged around the room, but Talyn waved them off. “You all worry too much,” they said, forcing a pained smile. “It’s like Roman said, I’ll be right as rain in—” they coughed again, “—in no time.”

“Sorry, Talyn,” Virgil said with a light laugh. “Worrying is how we show affection.”

“If we’re worried about you, it means we care!” Patton piped up, a real smile blossoming across his face.

Logan’s chest tightened as once again he felt an empty hole gnawing it’s way up from his stomach and into his heart. He turned away, not wishing to see any more.

“You’ve made your point,” he said quietly to the ghost beside him, who hovered silently, regarding him with a strange expression. “What?” Logan demand, staring up at him. “What more could you possibly have to show me?”

The ghost sighed, a sound that encompassed both irritation and sympathy.

“It is not I who brought you here, Logan Sanders,” he said quietly. “It was you who brought me.”

“What do you—ah!” Logan yelped in surprise as Patton exited the hospital room by walking directly through him.

“—be right back!” he was saying. “I just have to use the bathroom.”

Logan watched him turn around in a confused circle for a moment, before he shrugged and headed towards the nurse’s station.

“Would help if I knew where it was,” he muttered to himself cheerfully. “Hi!” He said as he approached the woman behind the desk. “I was wondering if you—” 

He was cut off as suddenly the doors behind them burst open and a team of paramedics rushed by with someone on a stretcher. Patton and Logan gasped in unified horror as they both instantly recognized the body as it was rolled by, pale and unmoving.

“Logan?” Patton whispered, his hand flying over his mouth. He started hurrying after the stretcher, but the nurse behind the counter grabbed his arm.

“Let them work, honey,” she said in a firm but kind voice. “Don’t get in their way. If you like, I can send you an update on his condition later. Are you family?”

Patton shook his head, unable to speak.

“A friend then?”

He turned back to face her, his eyes wide and face blank, and then slowly shook his head again.

“No…no, not really. But we…that is, I—” he took a deep breath, then gave the woman a shaky smile. “I…I used to know him,” he said, before turning away to go back to the others.

Logan found himself face to face with his old friend, who looked so tired, so  _empty_.

“Patton?” he asked as they locked eyes. But Patton passed through him again, unseeing, and Logan whirled around. “Patton!” he cried, but there was no response.

The scene began to fade from his vision as Patton made it back to Talyn’s room and wordlessly collapsed into a surprised Thomas’s arms, his shoulders shaking gently with sobs.

“ _Patton!_ ” Logan was screaming now, reaching out trying in vain to grab hold of something,  _anything_ , to reach him, he had to reach him! 

“ _PATTON!_  PLEASE, PATTON, I’M HERE! I’M  _HERE_  PATTON, I’M OKAY, I’M  _SORRY!_ ”

The scene was gone now, replaced with nothing but blackness but Logan didn’t stop, tears streaming down his face as he desperately yelled, his voice growing raw.

“PATTON YOU WERE  _RIGHT_  I’M SO SORRY, I WAS WRONG, PATTON, I’M SORRY,  _PLEASE, **PATTON PLEASE!”**_

Logan choked on his sobs as he collapsed to his knees, gasping for air as an outpouring of emotion was released. He cried, for five minutes or five hours, he couldn’t tell. He didn’t know anymore, didn’t know  _anything_ , not that anything mattered. There wasn’t anything left now, just his tears and the darkness. 

A moment later, or perhaps it was an eternity, he felt a hand on his shoulder, thin and bony but strong. Warm.  _Real._

“Now,” the Ghost of Christmas Future said, his voice soft and comforting, “you understand, Logan Sanders.”

Logan looked up, to see the ghost kneeling in front of him, one hand resting on his shoulder, the hood of his cape pushed back, letting Logan see his pale face more clearly. Without thinking, he threw himself into the figure’s arms, sobbing anew.

The spirit received him, wrapping Logan in his arms and gently stroking his hair as he murmured comfort into his ear.

“There now,” he said with a small smile. “That’s better. Rise now, Logan Sanders. The morning is coming.” 


	9. Making Amends

Logan lifted his head just in time to see the ghost’s cloak wrap around him, obscuring what little vision he had in the spirit’s void. He closed his eyes on instinct, and when he opened them again, he was on his hands and knees in his living room, with sunlight streaming through his window.

Logan froze for a moment, then clambered to his feet, rushing forward to the window and flinging it open. A blast of cold air hit his face, and he squinted against the brilliant glare of sunlight reflecting off of freshly fallen snow.

Logan breathed in deep and relished in the cold that stung his skin and the light that stung his eyes. A horrible thought struck him, and he scrambled to find his phone, but as he pulled it from his pocket and lifted it up, relief swept over him. It was eight in the morning, on precisely the day it should be. A notification caught his eye, and he opened his messenger app to see the slew of texts from Virgil that he had ignored so foolishly.

_patton told me what happened today_

_c’mon man, i just wanna talk to you_

_you can’t ignore me forever, logan_

Logan quickly typed out a reply, not bothering to review it before sending like he usually did.

_Virge…Oh my god, Virge, I am so sorry. God, I’ve been so stupid. I can’t…I don’t even know how to…GOD Virgil, I’m SO sorry._

Logan hit send, then dropped his phone on his couch, his head spinning.

“The party,” he whispered to himself, then his eyes widened. “The party! The party is today!”

Logan turned and rushed into his bedroom to put on fresh clothes. He was about to put on one of his usual dress shirts when he saw the lumpy package from Thomas he had discarded earlier that week in the back of the closet. He pulled it out and tore the paper off, revealing a sweater with a carefully knit test tube wearing a scarf and (somehow) holding a songbook on the front. Beneath the cartoonish figure were the words “Oh Chemistree, Oh Chemistree” bookended by music notes.

Logan rolled his eyes at the pun, but he couldn’t stop the fond smile that grew on his face as he slid the sweater over his head. He grabbed his comb from the nightstand and ran it through his hair before hurrying back out into the living room. He picked up his phone, and grinned when he saw Virgil had replied.

_omg…logan?_

_woah, ok, i wasn’t…wtf dude are you feeling ok?_

Logan laughed as he sent his reply, grabbing his hat and coat as he did so and searching around the apartment for his shoes.

_Yes Virgil, I am quite well. Better than I have been in a long time, in fact. I can see why you might think otherwise, but that is all the more reason I have to be sorry._

Logan found his shoes and quickly pulled them on, then all but ran out the door. He hurried down the stairs of his building, not bothering to wait on the elevator, and only slowed when he reached the snow covered steps outside.

As quickly as he could manage in the snow, Logan got into his car and drove through the streets he had hovered over the night before. Everything looked so different in the daylight, so much clearer and sharper, and Logan relished every second of it.

Soon, he found himself at his destination, and he all but tripped hurrying up the steps of the modest house that Logan hadn’t been to in so long…at least, not physically. He knocked on the door, and only after he did so did a hint of apprehension crawl its way into his chest.

What if he was being foolish? What if it was too late, and he had already had enough of him? He wouldn’t blame him, he deserved whatever rejection he was liable to get, but he had to see him at least one more time, had to apologize.

Any remaining doubt evaporated the moment Patton opened the door, his auburn curls a mess and a holiday apron tied around his waist.

“Logan!” he exclaimed, his voice full of shock, confusion, but most of all delight.

Logan threw caution to the wind and surged forward, wrapping the surprised man in hug, burying his face in the slightly shorter man’s shoulder. Patton only stood frozen for a moment before he returned the hug, his grip almost as desperate as Logan’s own.

Logan let out a shuddering gasp as he realized just how  _long_  it had been since he’d had a real hug from  _anyone_ , let alone from Patton. Patton’s hugs were warm and safe and all-encompassing, practically impossible not to feel at home in.

“Logan?” Patton asked, pulling back slightly and staring up into Logan’s eyes. “Lo honey, what’s wrong?”

Only then did Logan realize he was crying, and he shook his head, unable to speak. He pulled Patton close again, and would have liked to stay there in that moment for the rest of time, if Patton hadn’t pulled him away from the front door.

“Lo, honey, you’re shaking. Let’s get you inside and get this door closed, okay?”

Logan laughed wetly and nodded, allowing Patton to drag him indoors and help him take off his snow covered shoes. Patton gasped when Logan removed his coat, revealing the handmade sweater underneath.

“Lo?”

Logan turned and faced Patton, and he wanted to say the perfect thing to express just how  _sorry_  he truly was, how much he regretted everything he’d said, everything he’d done, but when he saw Patton’s blue eyes wide and full of awe and hope and maybe a few tears of their own, he found he couldn’t properly form sentences.

“Patton…Patton,  _God_  I’m so sorry,” he gasped, then the words were tumbling out faster than he could even process. “You were right, oh my God Patton, you were right about everything; you were right about Marley, you were right about  _me,_  you were right about Christmas, and oh God I messed everything up Patton, I nearly ruined _everything_ and I understand if you hate me I really do I just needed to tell you, needed you to know how  _sorry_  I am, I’m  _so_  sorry, I was stupid, I—”

“Shhh…” Patton soothed as he pulled Logan into another hug. “Hush now, Lo-Lo, it’s alright…everything’s alright now.” He kept murmuring gentle, careful words as he guided Logan to the couch.

Patton sat beside him, and once Logan could bring himself to meet his eyes, he saw they were shining…with tears, yes, but something else too. Something that Logan sometimes had trouble putting words to or understanding, but something that he knew nonetheless was very real.

“I mean it,” he whispered, his voice raw. “I’m really,  _really_  sorry.”

Patton smiled at him, and nodded.

“I know Lo…I’m s-sorry too, I—”

“No,” Logan interrupted, reaching for Patton’s hand and squeezing it. “You have  _nothing_  to apologize for, none of this was your fault. I know you’ve heard that before, and I know you don’t believe it, but it’s true. It was all me, Pat, and I know I can never make up for it, but—”

“You don’t have to,” Patton whispered, cutting him off. He reached and took Logan’s other hand. “You’re here now. That’s enough.”

“I…I came for the party,” Logan muttered, wiping his eyes. “I didn’t want…I’ve missed too many of them, I couldn’t miss another.”

Patton raised an eyebrow, and his smile took on a teasing nature.

“Well…I’m happy to hear that Lo, but…it’s not even nine am yet. The party isn’t until two.”

Logan laughed, his heart lighter than it had been in  _ages_.

“Well, I didn’t want to be late.”

Patton giggled, but his attention was stolen by his phone ringing on the side table next to them.

“Oh! It’s Thomas, hang on,” Patton said as he answered it, and Logan suddenly felt nervous. “Hi Thomas! You won’t believe who’s here with—what? Oh, yeah! Yeah, that’s what I was trying to say…he’s here right now! Yeah! He came over like, ten minutes ago.” Patton looked over at Logan and grinned. “He seems just perfect to me. Okay, sure, see you soon. Bye!” He hung up, and smiled again at Logan.

“Thomas is on his way! He’ll be here any minute. Hey…hey, what is it, Logan?” he asked as Logan put his head in his hands.

“I just…I hope he can forgive me,” he muttered.

“Aww, Lo,” Patton crooned, pulling Logan into another hug. “It’ll be okay, I promise.”

The two of them stayed like that until another knock sounded at the door. Patton gave Logan a reassuring smile, then got up to answer it. Logan shuffled uncomfortably, then stood and took a deep breath. Whatever happened, at least he’d be able to apologize.

“Hi Thomas!” Patton said cheerfully, stepping aside to let a bewildered looking Thomas enter the living room.

The two cousins found themselves face to face, and Logan did his best to keep his voice steady and maintain eye contact.

“Hello, Thomas…Merry Christmas. I believe that an explanation is in order for my—OOF!” The wind was knocked out of Logan as Thomas crushed him in an unexpected hug.

“Virgil called and told me what you said, but I didn’t think…I didn’t realize you’d come  _here_!” Thomas cried.

“I’m…I’m sorry, Thomas, I understand if you’re upset, but I simply wanted to—”

“Upset?” Thomas interrupted, pulling out of the hug with a stupid grin on his face. “Logan, I…I’m  _thrilled_  you’re here!”

Logan smiled back shyly.

“So am I,” he whispered, and Thomas pulled him close again.

Logan lost himself in the embrace, never wanting it to end.

* * *

As it turned out, he didn’t have to worry much on that front, as later when Roman and Virgil arrived, they were equally willing to reciprocate when he hesitantly offered them a hug and an apology. Roman’s arms were as strong as Virgil’s were gentle, and again Logan marveled at the fact that it had been so long since he’d allowed himself feel this warm.

“I don’t get it,” Roman said as the five of them worked together to prepare for the rest of Patton’s guests. “Why this sudden change of heart? Just yesterday you were slamming emotional (and physical) doors—Ow! Virgil, don’t kick me—and today you’re down for the holiday spirit? Ow!  _Virgil!_ ” Roman swatted at Virgil who was shooting him a death glare.

Logan laughed at their antics, which seemed to surprise both of them, then he paused. How much should he say? How to deliver the truth without making them think he’d lost his mind…

“Logan?” Virgil asked, and Logan smiled up at them.

“Last night…I did a lot of thinking,” he said. “I honestly don’t know how it happened, but I started thinking about everything that happened…about us in general, and about Christmas, and…I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I just realized that…that I’ve been wrong. This whole time.  _Horribly_  wrong, and it nearly destroyed everything that I care about, I…” Logan took a deep breath, feeling tears beginning to pool again in his eyes. “I just…saw how close I’d come to losing all of you, and I couldn’t bear that. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

He screwed his eyes shut, feeling a hot wave of shame come over him, but before he could even properly register it a strong pair of arms was wrapping around him, then another and another, and then all five of them ended up on the ground as the attempt at a massive group hug ended up causing them all to lose their balance.

Logan laughed, and buried his face in the crook of someone’s elbow.

They would be okay.

* * *

Later, the rest of Patton’s guests arrived, and Logan found himself smiling and laughing, making conversation with people he once had called friends but had pushed away years ago.

“I didn’t know you were coming this year!” Larry Fezziwig had cried after warmly shaking Logan’s hand, and Logan had to laugh.

“Honestly Mr. Fezzi— _Larry_ , neither did I.”

It was a little bit awkward, but Logan found he didn’t mind so much when he was surrounded by people that he cared about so much…and that he knew cared about him. The living room was light and warm and full of the same joy that had been present in his visions, but the visions paled in comparison to how  _real_  this was, how tangible the feeling was inside him. When it came time for the white elephant gift exchange and Logan sheepishly admitted that he hadn’t brought any gift, Patton pulled him to his feet and engulfed him in another hug.

“You’re my best friend, Lo-Lo,” Patton whispered as warmth spread throughout Logan’s whole being. “That’s all the present I need.”

A chorus of  _awww’s_  rang out through the room, and Roman and Virgil started an argument about whether or not that meant Logan could have a bow placed on his head and sent home with somebody. Logan laughed along with the others, and even allowed Roman to stick a gold bow in his hair, though he opted to just sit out and watch the rest of the guests participate in the gift exchange.

By the time the last of the goodbyes were said and it was the original five friends alone in the house again, Logan felt fuller than he could ever remember feeling…but there was still one thing he wanted to do.

“Hey, Virge?” he called to the emo, who was in the kitchen with Patton washing empty cocoa mugs. “Can you call Ari and have her make sure there are a dozen screamers ready for me?”

Virgil raised an eyebrow, but nodded.

“Sure, I guess I can do that. Why though?”

Logan took a deep breath, then looked around at his friends.

“There’s someone I’d like you all to meet.”  


	10. Epilogue

In a swirling void of light and darkness, colors and shapes, two figures stood side by side, looking down at the earth. Both wore robes that reached all the way to their feet, one in white and one in red. The red robed figure had a hand raised, and a swirling cloud lay at his fingertips. Through the cloud, they could make out a small party of humans gathered around a hospital bed. 

* * *

 

_“—reason to trust you?” the human in the bed, Talyn, was saying, their eyes narrow, looking as though they’d like nothing more than to climb out of their hospital bed and deck the man talking to them._

_“None,” Logan Sanders replied, clearly surprising them. “You have no reason at all to trust me…which is why I wanted to come. To apologize, to both of you.” He turned to the figure holding Talyn’s hand. “Joan, I have failed you as a professor, and I would understand if you chose to have your dissertation transferred to another professor for supervision. But you have enormous potential, as a student, as a scientist, and as a person, and if I may, it would be my honor to continue to mentor you.”_

_Joan appeared speechless, but they nodded._

_“Yeah…yeah, I-I guess that’d be alright…”_

_**“Joan!”**  Talyn hissed. “You’re gonna forgive him just like that?”_

_“You don’t have to give me an answer now,” Logan added, once again surprising the two of them. “You are welcome to think on it as long as you wish. I just wanted to let you know as soon as possible…and bring you these.” Logan held out a brown paper bag to Joan, who, after sharing a look of confusion with Talyn, reached inside and pulled out—_

_“Cookies?” Joan asked in surprise._

_“They are from my friend Virgil’s cafe,” Logan explained. “I had a…feeling you would like them.”_

_“Are those shaped like The Scream?” Talyn asked, leaning over Joan’s arm to look._

_“Yeah, I call them screamers,” Virgil said as he and the others shuffled forward at Logan’s nod._

_Talyn smiled._

_“Okay, that’s a neat idea,” they admitted._

_“Uh, yeah, who are these people again?” Joan asked, their eyes sweeping over Roman, Thomas, and Patton._

_“Well, even if you decide not to work with me anymore…I wanted to introduce these friends of mine to you,” Logan said, nodding towards the others. “It…occurred to me that you all might get along well.”_

_“I love your hair!” Roman said to Talyn, who grinned._

_“Thanks,” they said, “I dyed it myself.”_

_**“Really?**  It’s masterful work! I was going to ask you who your hairdresser is!”_

_The two of them began chatting, while Logan introduced Patton and Thomas to Joan. Everyone seemed a bit confused, but a bit hopeful too, and the two figures watching from above couldn’t keep the smiles off their faces._

* * *

As they watched, a third figure rose up beside them, it’s cloak a deep purple.

“It appears you were successful,” the Ghost of Christmas Past said as the newcomer approached.

“Indeed,” the Ghost of Christmas Present added, still focusing on displaying the scene before them. “But did you  _have_ to show him the future where he died a horrific death?”

The Ghost of Christmas Future shrugged as he joined the other two.

“It works every time,” he said simply. “Besides, it was a likely future, considering the path he was on.”

“I  _suppose_ ,” Present agreed, rolling his eyes.

“It’s so lovely to see them all happy again,” Past said with a fond smile as they watched the humans make conversation. “It is a shame about Marley though. I had hoped we could get through to him too…”

Future placed a hand on Past’s shoulder.

“We can’t save them all, Past,” he said quietly. “In the end…they have to make their own choices.”

“I know,” Past sighed, then he smiled up at Future. “Still! Today was a victory.”

“Indeed!” Present said again, letting his hand fall and the view of Logan Sanders’s life melt away. “We should celebrate!”

Future rolled his eyes, but a smile quirked at the corner of his lips.

“Very well, but not for long. We must move on to the next soul.”

“Always working,” chided Present. “When are you going to learn to live in the moment, Future?”

“You do realize the absurdity of your statement, don’t you?”

Past laughed as Present and Future began bickering like always, then looked back to the memories of earth, full of love and hope and the Spirit of Christmas.

He smiled to himself.

“God bless us,” he whispered into the void. “ _Everyone.”_

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cold Heart- A Sanders Sides Fan Fiction](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15854697) by [Ericthometer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ericthometer/pseuds/Ericthometer)




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